Chaotic signals from HDI measurement

Abstract

The Human Development Index (HDI) is designed to provide a development measure competing with GDP, and it has been reformed several times to this end. The 1996 and 1997 reports, however, reveal a severe new flaw in the HDI: the transformation of GDP changes into the index of human development is completely misleading, as higher real per capita GDP often causes lower HDI values, and vice-versa. This transformation is generally highly sensitive to the initial GDP, resulting in chaotic transformation patterns. Relatively marginal modifications to the measurement of HDI could solve this problem.