To Rank or Not to Rank with Indices? That Is the Question

Stephen Morse

doi:10.3390/su12145572

Abstract

Ranking countries via index-based league tables is now commonplace and is said by its proponents to provide countries with an ability to compare performance with their peers, spurring them to learn from others and make improvements. The Human Development Index (HDI) is arguably one of the most influential indices of its type in terms of reporting within the media and influence on development policy and funding allocation. It is often used as part of a suite of indices to assess sustainability. The index was first published in the Human Development Report (HDR) of 1990 and has appeared in each of the HDRs published since then. This paper reports the first research of its type designed to explore the impacts of methodological changes over 28 years (1991 to 2018) on the ranks of a sample of 135 countries appearing in the HDRs. Results suggest that methodological changes in the HDI have had a statistically significant impact on the ranking of the majority (82%) of countries in the sample, and the ranks of countries that tend to appear towards the top, middle, or bottom of the HDI league table are just as likely to be influenced by changes in HDI methodology. The paper suggests that after nearly 30 years of the HDI, there is an urgent need for independent and empirical research on the changes that it has helped bring about.

Highlights

The ongoing COVID-19 tragedy has, at the time of writing, been at least partially responsible for the deaths of over 400,000 people globally and the infection rate is estimated to be over 700 million
Sustainability 2019, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW. While it has been well-reported that methodological shifts in the Human Development Index (HDI) do have an influence on country ran(ak)inCghs awnitghein1the reported league tables [22] and there have been studies which looked at uncertainty surrounding country rankings of the HDI and other indices [21], this is the first study of its type to explore the influen0c.2e5s of some of the major methodological changes between 1991 and 2018 taken in their totality on cou0.n20try rank
For some countries (18% of the panel used in the0.a1n0alysis) the methodological changes had no significant impact on rank while for the vast majority (08.025%) there is an influence from one of the changes or combinations of them

Summary

Introduction

The ongoing COVID-19 tragedy has, at the time of writing, been at least partially responsible for the deaths of over 400,000 people globally and the infection rate is estimated to be over 700 million. These are sobering and upsetting figures, especially since the virus was only confirmed in countries outside of China in January 2020—barely 6 months ago. Every day since 30 March 2020, the UK government has been giving daily briefings on the state-of-play with COVID-19, prior to that there were various statements from the prime minister and other senior politicians. In the UK, this was initially reported in terms of deaths taking place in hospitals but was later replaced by a more accurate figure based on deaths in all settings: primarily hospitals

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