ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the technical aspects of the Human Development Index (HDI) and its updated versions and makes some recommendations for improving the content and structure of this index. The data from Human Development Report 1994 for 173 countries are used to test the robustness of this modified index and the results are compared to those of the HDI. The problem is that as HDI is the average of the sum of three equally weighted indices, it follows that the absolute value of each component will affect the level of HDL Hence the selected extreme values would affect the value of the index. In general the simple addition of the components HDI has little justification. The inspection of modified human development index (MHDI) revealed sudden drops in the value of the index. The MHDI was applied to the data in HDR 1994 and the results were compared to those of the United Nations Development Programme HDI.
