Human Development and the Path to Freedom
Human Development and the Path to Freedom
How has human development evolved during the last 150 years of globalization and economic growth? How has human development been distributed across countries? How do developing countries compare to developed countries? Do social systems matter for wellbeing? Are there differences in the performance of developing regions over time? Employing a capabilities approach, Human Development and the Path to Freedom addresses these key questions in the context of modern economic growth and globalization from c.1870 to the present. Leandro Prados de la Escosura shows that health, access to knowledge, standards of living, and civil and political freedom can substitute for GDP per head as more accurate measures of our wellbeing.
- Introduces the concept of human development to study multidimensional wellbeing
- Employing Sen's capabilities approach it uses an 'augmented' concept of human development in which enlarging people's choices is its main goal
- Discusses how human development has evolved and been distributed during the last 150 years of globalization and economic growth
Reviews & endorsements
'… a go-to source for comprehensive overviews of trends in important measures of human and social development. … Highly recommended.' D. Mitch, Choice
'Prados' work represents an enormous contribution to a new quantitative global history of development, which provides eye-opening data and explanations.' Markus Lamp, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte
'A handy global comparative reference of essential characteristics of development beyond the GDP in the last 150 years for economic and social historians … this book will benefit scholars and students for years to come.' Sakari Saaritsa, Economic History Association
Product details
July 2022Hardback
9781108477345
250 pages
236 × 156 × 23 mm
0.7kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I. An Aggregate View:
- 1. Augmented human development: What is it? How to measure it?
- 2. Trends in human development
- 3. World distribution of human development
- Part II. The OECD and the Rest:
- 4. Human development in the OECD and the rest
- 5. Human development in Latin America
- 6. Human development in Africa
- Postscript
- Appendices.
