Abstract
This chapter contains a brief overview of the research reported in this monograph. It also compares the development ranking rule developed here with those in the existing literature on the subject. It does not aspire to present an exhaustive survey of all ranking rules. The purpose here is only to highlight the basic differences of approach. We discuss the rankings obtained from the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Better Life Index (BLI). We also refer to a number of other ranking rules proposed by academic researchers. It is seen that most of the specific indices that have been suggested violate one or more of the conditions (discussed in this book) that one wishes to impose on the way multidimensional inequality and development is measured. More fundamentally, the choice of any specific index of overall development inevitably faces the criticism of arbitrariness since different indices lead to different rankings and one is left wondering as to which of these should be considered to be the true ranking. The chapter concludes the discussion by noting that there seems to be a trade-off between the requirement of completeness of the development ranking and that of its robustness with respect to choice among the underlying development induces. Informally, therefore, a development ranking approach (such as the one suggested in this book) that focuses on the requirement of robustness can be considered to be complementary to the methods (focusing on complete rankings) that appear in a major part of the existing literature.
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Notes
- 1.
It may be noted that there are also a rich variety of multidimensional indices other than development indices. Some of them, however, do pay attention to various specific aspects of well-being. The Human Poverty Index and the Gender Inequality Index (launched by the United Nations Development Program), the Air Quality Index (due to the United States Environmental Protection Agency), the Green Economy Progress Index (proposed by the United Nations Environmental Program) are some examples. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) declared by the United Nations may also be mentioned in this connection. MDGs set the goals of achieving stipulated amounts of reductions in deprivation in various dimensions within specified target dates. The goals are, however, stated dimension by dimension and are not sought to be integrated into a single figure of reduction in a multidimensional index.
- 2.
For a detailed analysis of the properties of a large number of multidimensional indices (including the development indices discussed in the text as well as the other indices mentioned in Footnote 1 above) see Chakravarty (2018).
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Banerjee, A.K. (2020). Overview and Concluding Remarks. In: Measuring Development. Themes in Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6161-0_8
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