Economics: HDI, Unemployment, and Globalization

Running head: ECONOMICS
Economics
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1ECONOMICS
Table of Contents
Question 1..................................................................................................................................2
Question 2..................................................................................................................................3
Question 3..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................6

2ECONOMICS
Question 1
Thesis Statement: HDI is a good measure of economic and social well-being
Evaluation
Human Development Index is a widely accepted measure of economic well-being.
HDI is considered as a composite index of well-being covering three aspects of wellbeing and
good life. HDI considers indices in addition to GDP such as longevity, knowledge and a
decent living standard. Longevity is measured by life expectancy at birth. Level of education
is measured b adult literacy and gross enrollment ratio. Finally, income is captured through
per capital GDP. value of HDI lies between 0 and 1. Countries having HDI value above 0.80
are considered as High Human Development group. Countries having HDI values ranging
between 0.50 and 0.80 are considered as medium Human Development countries while those
below 0.50 are low Human Development Countries.
The human choices are though unlimited but at any level of development, the most
important ones are that people want to live a healthy and long life, acquire adequate
knowledge and enjoy access to the resources necessary to secure a decent standard of living.
It people do not have these necessary choices then there are many other opportunities that
remain unattainable. As HDI captures the three basic dimensions of human and social life it
us a good measure of economic and social well-being. The importance of HDI in measuring
well-being lies in the fact that countries having higher income might have lower HDI rank.
For example, US though has a higher income than Norway but it terms life expectancy
Norway is in a better position. The life expectancy at birth in US and Norway are 77.7 years
and 82.9 years respectively.
Despite covering major aspects of well-being, HDI is not free from its shortcomings.
Many economists point out it is not possible trace economic growth of a nation using HDI.