Abstract
Bechtel (2018, 2019) linked gross domestic product (GDP) to the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI). Bechtel, G. and Bechtel, T., 2020 then found that American GDP alone predicted HDI. These results induce the hypotheses that two transforms of GDP perfectly predict a new index of HDI-attenuated GDP (W) introduced here. These hypotheses are confirmed at the global level and for the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies. These discoveries inform the debate on well-being and show that W can be computed from GDP without survey sampling, questionnaire interrogation, probabilistic inference, or significance testing. In view of trade-war and COVID-19 shocks to the global and national economies, international attention to GDP and human development is now compelling.
Highlights
G. and Bechtel, T., 2020 found that American gross domestic product (GDP) alone predicted Human Development Index (HDI). These results induce the hypotheses that two transforms of GDP perfectly predict a new index of HDI-attenuated GDP (W) introduced here
These hypotheses are confirmed at the global level and for the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies
These discoveries inform the debate on well-being and show that W can be computed from GDP without survey sampling, questionnaire interrogation, probabilistic inference, or significance testing
Summary
Mahatma Ghandi rejected the concept that underlies classical economic thinking; namely that “the human being is a rational actor always seeking to maximize material self-interest [....] His model, by contrast, is aimed at the fulfillment of needs—including the need for meaning and community [....] Ghandi’s concept of egalitarianism was centered on the preservation of human dignity rather than material development” (cf. Internet Explorer: Mahatma Ghandi—Wikipedia). Explicating the three dimensions and their composite HDI scale, the United Nations Development Program (http://hdr.undp.org/en/data) continues: “The normalized [0, 1] scale for health and education (in years) and standard of living (in logarithm-of-dollar-units) is obtained as follows: Minimum and maximum values (goalposts) are set in order to transform the indicators expressed in different units into indices on a scale of 0 to 1. These goalposts act as the ‘natural zeros’ and ‘aspirational targets’, respectively, from which component indicators are standardized.
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