Author
PhD student in Economics, Allameh Tabatabai University
Abstract
Comparison of countries development is one of the topics of interest to Economists, as well as international organizations. Human Development Index (HDI) has shown that there is possibility to use a unique, index to explain multilateral expanded phenomenon of development.
This essay surveys the HDI and its shortcomings and tries to develop a unique index for measuring countries development by using two techniques of Factor Analysis and Numeric Taxonomy. In this index about 90 variables are used to take into account various economic, social and political factors affecting economic development. Obviously, this method has many disadvantages, which should be discussed. The Index is applied to 100 countries.
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