Generalized Family of Multi-Step Utility Functions for Adoption in UNDP's Human Development Index

Authors

  •   Ajit Chaturvedi Associate Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Delhi, Delhi - 110 007
  •   Neeraj Tiwari Professor & Head, Department of Statistics, Kumaun University, Almora, Uttarakhand
  •   Ravi Kant Bhatnagar Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism (Government of India), New Delhi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17010/aijer/2014/v3i6/55996

Keywords:

Human Development Index

, Income-Transforming Utility Function

B40

, I30, I31

Paper Submission Date

, January 16, 2014, Paper sent back for Revision, August 4, Paper Acceptance Date, September 1, 2014.

Abstract

UNDP introduced the human development report in 1991, a radical change in its approach in terms of multi-step fragmenting of the utility function and a concept of threshold income level, which was followed till 1998 by following an ill-structured Atkinson based multi-step utility function. Realizing the weaknesses in it formulation, the UNDP abandoned the approach abruptly from 1999 onwards. As a viable substitute for erroneous Atkinson based multi-step formulation of utility function used in UNDP's human development reports till 1998, we provided a generalized family of the utility functions under the premise of multi-step formulation while adhering to the concept of threshold income level and have showed in the present study that the earlier proposed two alternative formulations due to Bhatnagar (2001, 2002a) turn out to be particular cases.

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Published

2014-12-01

How to Cite

Chaturvedi, A., Tiwari, N., & Bhatnagar, R. K. (2014). Generalized Family of Multi-Step Utility Functions for Adoption in UNDP’s Human Development Index. Arthshastra Indian Journal of Economics & Research, 3(6), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.17010/aijer/2014/v3i6/55996

Issue

Volume 3, Issue 6, November-December 2014

Section

Articles
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Europe PMC

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