This paper provides a theoretical framework that shows that the Human Development Index (HDI) is equivalent to a paternalistic social welfare function: this implies that all alternative HDI formulas used by economic historians merely represent their ethical systems. The problem is neither the choice of the dimensions included in the HDI nor the weighting scheme but the lack of consistency with standard economic theory. A key consequence is that with HDI, “anything goes”: using Italy 1861–2016 as a case study, we show how, given the same dataset, the interpretation of Italy’s performance is entirely driven by the analyst’s preferences.

中文翻译：

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人类发展指数在经济史上使用的几个问题

本文提供了一个理论框架，表明人类发展指数 (HDI) 等同于家长式社会福利函数：这意味着经济史学家使用的所有替代 HDI 公式仅代表他们的道德体系。问题既不在于人类发展指数所含维度的选择，也不在于权重方案，而在于与标准经济理论缺乏一致性。一个关键的结果是，对于 HDI，“一切皆有可能”：以意大利 1861-2016 年作为案例研究，我们展示了在给定相同数据集的情况下，对意大利表现的解释如何完全由分析师的偏好驱动。