Journal Special Issue
Well-being Achievements in Pacific Asia
Summary measures of human well-being are increasingly used to compare and monitor performance within and across countries. The UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI) is one of a number of measures which have done much to refocus attention on the...
Journal Article
When do relative prices matter for measuring income inequality?
Changes in relative prices of commodities consumed in different shares across income groups can be expected to alter real income differentials between these groups. Using Mozambican household budget survey and price data from 2002/03 and 2008/09, we...
Working Paper
Intra-Household Inequalities in Child Rights and Well-Being
This paper attempts to measure the extent of inequality within households and its contribution to overall levels of inequality in child well-being. The paper analyses the distribution of resources (outcomes) between girls and boys for four indicators...
Working Paper
New patterns of structural change and effects on inclusive development
This study explores the question of structural change and inclusive development in South Africa and Brazil. Using Census data from the two countries, the analysis combines a household level multidimensional indicator of well-being with the...
Working Paper
When do Relative Prices Matter for Measuring Income Inequality?
Changes in relative prices of commodities consumed in different shares across income groups can be expected to alter real income differentials between these groups. Using Mozambican household budget survey and price data from 2002/03 and 2008/09, we...
Working Paper
Monetary Inequality Among Households in Togo
This paper aims at measuring and analysing for the first time inequality in the distribution of expenditures among households in Togo according to the characteristics of household heads. The study is based on the most recent survey (QUIBB 2006) and...
Working Paper
Indices of Social Development and their Application to Africa
This paper, using a new set of social development indices, explores the measurement of social development across Africa, and how this relates to broader development patterns and measurement. Development practitioners worldwide increasingly recognize...
Working Paper
When do Relative Prices Matter for Measuring Income Inequality?
Changes in the relative prices of commodities consumed in different shares across income groups are known to influence real measures of inequality. Using household budget survey and price data in Mozambique from 2002/03 and 2008/09, we show that...
Working Paper
The Human Development Index Adjusted for Efficient Resource Utilization
The human development index (HDI) developed by the United Nations Development Programme is computed as the average of three equally weighted outcome measures: life expectancy (LI), educational attainment (EI) and income (WI). However, this...
Working Paper
Measuring the Quality of Life Across Countries
This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of interrelationships among the determinants of the quality of life (QOL). We show that various measures of well-being are highly sensitive to domains of QOL that are considered in the...
Working Paper
A Framework for Incorporating Environmental Indicators to the Measurement of Human Well-Being
This study, relying on an economic-theoretical approach to index numbers, proposes a framework for incorporating environmental indicators to the measurement of human well-being. Furthermore this study also proposes an improvement index which...
Working Paper
On the Arbitrariness and Robustness of Multi-Dimensional Poverty Rankings
It is often argued that multi-dimensional measures of well-being and poverty—such as those based on the capability approach and related views—are ad hoc. Rankings based on them are not, for this reason, robust to changes in the selection of weights...
Working Paper
Benchmarking Sustainable Development
The need for monitoring countries’ overall performance in sustainable development (SD) is widely recognized, but the methods for aggregating vast amounts of empirical data remain rather crude. This paper examines the so-called ‘benefit of doubt’...
Working Paper
Income-based Measures of Average Well-being
International comparisons of average national incomes omit important information about leisure, home production, health, etc. They are also bedevilled by index number problems. This paper suggests ways of combining working hours and life-expectancy...
Working Paper
Evaluating Governance Indexes
Recent years have seen a proliferation of ‘composite indicators’ or ‘indexes’ of governance. Such measures can be useful tools for analysing governance, making public policy, building scientific knowledge, and even influencing ruling elites, but some...
Working Paper
Poverty and Time
We examine the measurement of individual poverty in an intertemporal context. Our aim is to capture the importance of persistence in a state of poverty and we characterize a corresponding individual intertemporal poverty measure. Our first axiom...