Economic Development · 4 question types
Past paper frequency (2018 to 2024)
This topic accounts for approximately 11% of your exam marks.
GDP per capita limitations, HDI components, and living standards comparisons appear regularly in Section B; typically 8 to 12 marks.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index (combined single-number score) that captures three dimensions of human development: income, health and education. Each country gets an HDI score between 0 and 1; higher = more developed.
| Component | What it measures | Captures... |
|---|---|---|
| GNI per capita (PPP-adjusted) | Average income per person | The economic dimension |
| Life expectancy at birth | Number of years a newborn can expect to live | The health dimension |
| Education | Mean years of schooling for adults + expected years of schooling for children | The education dimension |
The three are combined into a single score by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) each year. Countries are then ranked into very high, high, medium and low human development categories.
HDI directly addresses two of the four limitations of GDP per capita.
Both health and education matter for living standards in their own right; they are not just inputs to higher future GDP. A country with high GDP but poor health and low schooling will have a noticeably lower HDI than its GDP rank suggests.
HDI is broader than GDP per capita but is not perfect.