Development concepts, indicators and measurement
This domain tests whether you can define development as more than rising output, select appropriate indicators, compute them, and explain what each one measures and misses. Questions usually ask you to compare two countries or to judge whether a government's claim of "development" is supported by the data given.
Growth is not the same as development
- GDP measures output produced inside a country's borders; GNI adds net factor income from abroad, so remittances and repatriated profits change the figure.
- Distinguish real from nominal values, totals from per-capita values, and exchange-rate values from purchasing power parity (PPP) values.
- Development is multidimensional: income, health, education, equity, empowerment and sustainability. Sen's capability approach frames development as expanding what people are able to do and be.
The Human Development Index
Each dimension is scaled 0–1, then combined:
- Health: (life expectancy − 20) ÷ (85 − 20)
- Education: mean years of schooling ÷ 15, and expected years ÷ 18, then average the two
- Income: (ln GNI per capita − ln 100) ÷ (ln 75,000 − ln 100) HDI is the geometric mean of the three, so a weak dimension cannot be fully bought off with income.
Worked example
Country A: life expectancy 64; mean years of schooling 6; expected years 11; GNI per capita PPP $6,000.
- Health index = (64 − 20) ÷ 65 = 0.677
- Education index = (6/15 + 11/18) ÷ 2 = (0.400 + 0.611) ÷ 2 = 0.506
- Income index = (8.700 − 4.605) ÷ (11.225 − 4.605) = 4.095 ÷ 6.620 = 0.619
- HDI = (0.677 × 0.506 × 0.619)^(1/3) ≈ 0.596 Reasoning shown: on income alone A looks mid-range, but the education index pulls the HDI down, which is exactly the point of the geometric mean.
Traps that cost marks
Comparing nominal GDP across countries without PPP; treating HDI as a complete measure of welfare (it ignores inequality, environment and rights - hence IHDI, MPI and GII); writing "high HDI" when the question asks for an index value; forgetting to state units and years for data.