A proposal of to extend the United Nations “Human Development Index”

ABSTRACT In spite the considerable advance made to the literature on development by the recent United Nations attempt to measuring “human development”, this paper argues that, especially in the context of developing countries, where poverty and inequality are of substantial order, these two dimensions should be integrated and added to the index proposed by that organism. This is accomplished by a new measure that simultaneously take into account indices of poverty, income distribution and human development. Empirical results show that the extension suggested is important and more appropriate for policy purposes.