ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of the major international approaches that have been adopted to measure economic development over the years. GNP based measures continued to dominate the measurement of development in broad terms, all its limitations notwithstanding. Globally, countries were classified as developed and developing on the basis of their GNP, of course often refined in per capita and purchasing power parity terms. Ravallion presents very strong reservations against the construction of a single composite index to capture multidimensional development and poverty. Mortality data, readily available in all developed and many but not all developing countries, is used to calculate the risk of death according to age and gender as well as life expectancy. The introduction of Human Development Index created a new paradigm in development policymaking as well as scholarship. A researcher might consider education to be the most important, while a policymaker may think that inclusiveness is the most important.
