Measuring living standard and poverty : Human Development Index as an alternate measure

Historically, development was mostly perceived in terms of economic performance. We have too long been preoccupied with material production and there has been a search for a good measure of it. Surely, per capita income has been proved to be a good candidate and has dominated the scene ever since. One can ask why per capita income? First it is an attractive single indicator for assessing economic performance. Second, it is also useful to for dividing the world into groups rich and poor, developed and developing – which are good criteria for allocating official development assistance at the international level. Finally, good reliable and solid data on national income accounts were available to calculate per capita income at a point of time and over time.