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It is widely recognised that the human development index (HDI) does not totally capture the rich content of the human development concept, necessitating a more adequate measure of human development. This paper introduces an ethics‐augmented human development index (E‐HDI) as a new indicator of socio‐economic change and development. The E‐HDI incorporates freedom, faith, environmental concerns and the institution of family in the HDI and ranks countries of the world accordingly. It is envisaged to be of practical use in national policy making and may also be related to agenda of the bilateral and international development agencies. Just as the HDI has managed to shift discussions beyond gross national product, the E‐HDI is expected to inject ethical concerns more explicitly into policy making in the contexts in which the human development reports are used.

The human development index (HDI) and gender‐related development index (GDI) have become accepted as leading measures for ranking human well being in different countries. The purpose of this paper is to identify the planning policies that improve these indices and to also suggest modifications to the indices that yield more sensible policies.Design/methodology/approach – This paper solves the first‐best welfare problem in which the planner maximizes a development index subject to resource constraints.Findings – Planning strategies that maximize the HDI tend towards minimizing consumption and maximizing expenditures on education and health. Interestingly, such strategies also tend towards equitable allocations, even though inequality aversion is not modelled in the HDI. The paper shows that the GDI generates optimal plans with similar properties, and determine when the GDI and HDI generate consistent optimal plans. A problematic feature of the optimal plans is that the income component in the HDI (or GDI) does not play its intended role of securing resources for a decent standard of living. Rather, it acts to distort the allocation between health and education expenditure. The paper argues that it is better to drop income from the index. Alternatively, the paper considers net income, income net of education and health expenditures, as indicating capabilities not already reflected in the index. Finally, it compares how the modified indices and the HDI rank countries.Originality/value – The paper is believed to be the first to integrate development indices into national development planning.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the existing literature on cross‐country disparities by providing measures of cross‐country inequality in human development index (HDI) and real income per capita over the 30‐year period 1975‐2004.

A well‐recommended inequality index is applied to the data.

Ten points are noted: first, HDI inequality declined over the period; second, the pace of decline slowed somewhat since 1990; third, magnitude of HDI inequality has been quite small; fourth, inequality in gross domestic product per capita also shows a declining pattern over the period; fifth, there is very high correlation between HDI and per capita income; sixth, despite the high correlation, magnitudes of inequalities in the two variables are dramatically different; seventh, therefore, even very high correlation may not be interpreted as implying similar inequalities in the variables; eighth, cross‐country inequalities in various regions show huge differences; ninth, negative trend in inequalities over the period shows high statistical significance; and tenth, t‐tests for equality of means do not pick up well even huge differences in regional inequalities, suggesting need for considerable caution in the use of such tests.

The primary scientific significance of the work lies in providing the measures of cross‐country inequality in HDI over the 30‐year period; showing dramatically different inequalities in HDI and income despite very high correlation between the two variables; and indicating cross‐country inequalities in eight different regional groups and also across regions.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of the financial performance of local governments to the level of welfare in 25 city/regency in South Sulawesi during 2009–2014.

The financial performance is measured by the rate of local autonomy, the effectiveness of local own-source revenue, budget harmony and budget absorption, while the welfare society measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), unemployment and poverty level.

The regression analysis showed that the performance of region autonomy proved to increase the HDI over the next year and to reduce the poverty rate in two and three years ahead, however, has no correlation with the unemployment. The effectiveness of local own-source revenue can lower unemployment at two and three years ahead but failed to increase the HDI and to reduce poverty. Harmony of spending also neglected to raise the HDI and to reduce the level of unemployment although it can alleviate poverty. The level of budget absorption can improve HDI and reduce the unemployment at two and three years ahead, but failed to lower poverty. Expenditure harmony and budget absorption failed to moderate the relationship between local autonomy, the effectiveness of local own-source revenue and all measurement of welfare, while the expenditure harmony able to moderate the relationship between the effectiveness of local own-source revenue and HDI.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, no previous study has comprehensively studied the effects of level of regionality autonomy and effectivity of local own-source revenue to public welfare, and the moderation effect of Expenditure harmony, budget absorption in relationship between financial performance of local government to public welfare, especially in Indonesia.

The present research has been conceptualized to make an inter-district analysis in terms of IHDI of Uttar Pradesh. It aims to provide district-wise estimates of HDI and IHDI with the latest available data, which may prove to be a critical policy input to the policy makers that how different districts are performing in terms of education, health and standard of living parameters and help in implementing tailor made policy actions.

The paper utilizes the Census of India data and unit-level data of National Sample Survey (NSS) for constructing HDI and IHDI. The broad framework for computing IHDI in this study is similar to the approach of UNDP's HDR 2010. To adjust the inequality aspect, the Atkinson inequality aversion parameter has been estimated at indicator level on the basis of NSS unit record data.

The study reveals that inequality discounted income index is on an average 30 percent lower than unadjusted income index. However, quite high variation exists in case of education and health. The difference ranges from 30 percent to 40 percent in the case of education and from 3 to 36 percent in the health dimension. The surprising fact which study finds that health infrastructure and education infrastructure are poorly correlated with their respective outcomes.

The study offers a policy suggestion that increasing investment on educational and health infrastructure will not have any significant impact on their respective outcomes unless distributional inequalities are reduced. The study also suggests that rising income inequalities are threat to inclusive growth and sustainable development goals agenda. Thus, it recommends policy makers to take pro-active timely policy measures to reduce income inequalities. The educational achievement should be fixed in terms of average years of schooling and expected years of schooling rather than in terms of literacy rate.

The present research is an original work. This is the first study in the case of Uttar Pradesh which attempted to estimate district-wise IHDI following the internationally accepted UNDP (2010) methodology.

The research aims to include good governance as a facet in the measurement of human development.

A modified Human Development Index (MHDI) was computed by including a governance dimension computed using the six governance indicators published by the World Bank. The rankings using the new index were obtained and compared to the rankings of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP's) HDI.

The rank correlation of the original and modified indices was very high, but there were many big rank changes for individual countries in each HDI group. These rank changes could be largely reconciled in the light of the rankings of these countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index and the Democracy Index.

The research considers the measurement of human development at a point in time alone and incorporates 2010 governance indicators into the 2011 HDI, which could lead to a discrepancy in time periods considered. Furthermore, the governance indicators are measures of perceptions which can be subjective. The Practical implications paper does not delve into the country-specific factors that may have caused big rank changes.

The paper builds a case for incorporating, or at least providing the option of including a governance dimension in the HDI.

The paper is a novel attempt to incorporate good governance as a dimension in the HDI. It reasserts the need for policy-makers and governments to realize that peoples' capabilities cannot be realized in the absence of good governance, and that whilst improving other facets of human development, much attention needs to be paid towards establishing good governance.

Many world regions are developing quickly and experiencing increasing levels of sanitation, causing an epidemiological shift of hepatitis A in these areas. The shift occurs when children avoid being infected with the disease until a later age due to cleaner water sources, food, and hygiene practices in their environment; but if they are infected at later age, the disease is much more severe and lost productivity costs are higher. The purpose of this paper is to examine what could occur if an epidemiological shift of the disease continues in these regions, and what type of future burden hepatitis A may have in a hypothetical rapidly developing country.

Initially, annual hepatitis A mortality was regressed on the Human Development Index (HDI) for each country classified as an emerging and growth-leading economy (EAGLE) to provide an overview of how economic development and hepatitis A mortality related. Data from the various EAGLE countries were also fit to a model of hepatitis A mortality rates in relation to HDI, which were both weighted by each country’s 1995–2010 population of available data, in order to create a model for a hypothetical emerging market country. A second regression model was fit for the weighted average annual hepatitis A mortality rate of all EAGLE countries from the years 1995 to 2010. Additionally, hepatitis A mortality rate was regressed on year.

Regression results show a constant decline of mortality as HDI increased. For each increase of one in HDI value in this hypothetical country, mortality rate declined by 2.3016 deaths per 100,000 people. The hypothetical country showed the HDI value increasing by 0.0073 each year. Also, results displayed a decrease in hepatitis A mortality rate of 0.0168 per 100,000 people per year. Finally, the mortality rate for hepatitis A in this hypothetical country is projected to be down to 0.11299 deaths per 100,000 people by 2030 and its economic status will fall just below the HDI criteria for a developed country by 2025.

The hypothetical country as a prototype model was created from the results of regressed data from EAGLE countries. It is aimed to display an example of the health and economic changes occurring in these rapidly developing regions in order to help understand potential hepatitis A trends, while underscoring the importance of informed and regular policy updates in the coming years. The author believes this regression provides insight into the patterns of hepatitis A mortality and HDI as these EAGLE countries undergo rapid development.

Previous studies have challenged the Human Development Index’s (HDI) ability to emulate the achievement of falāh (happiness). This paper aims to evaluate the role of religious values in establishing a positive link between the current measurement of development and falāh.

First, this study derives an improved value-loaded development measure from the concept of Maqasid al-Shari’ah (the higher objectives of Islamic law). Second, this paper compares the calculated Maqasid al-Shari’ah Index (MSI) with the HDI of some Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries by using the parametric pair difference z-test and t-test along with the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Finally, the relationship of both indices and the proxy of falāh are examined by using the ordinary least square and the generalised method of moments estimations.

As far as the religious-led development is concerned, the HDI underestimates OIC countries’ development progress. Here, the MSI can better embody the attainment of falāh than the HDI.

This study only covers limited OIC countries due to the data availability issue.

The cultural-based development stemming from the religious values proves useful for putting the government effort towards the attainment of the objective of human well-being in the right direction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the empirical relationship between the MSI and falāh.

High‐density interconnect (HDI) continues to be the fastest growing segment of the printed circuit board (PCB) market. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the differences in designing HDI compared to conventional PCB multilayers. This is important for the challenging aspects of very high‐speed electronics that require care to control signal integrity and power integrity.

Eight new design principles were studied and illustrated with emphasis on how these differ from conventional PCB design.

HDI implementation can be improved 2X to 4X by employing these new design principles. Densities from 6‐12 in. per sq. inch to 18‐48 in. per sq. inch have been reported. Design time reductions of 50 percent and cost reductions of 30 percent were also seen.

This work was focused on the basic design principles and does not address electronics design automation tools or specific design steps. PCB design is a complex activity and readers are encouraged to obtain and use the references cited.

The paper describes various design and layout procedures that the authors have learned over the last 29 years involved in printed circuit design and fabrication. These principles can be combined with other innovations to enable a much more beneficial use of HDI technologies.

Microvias or high density interconnects (HDI) printed circuits are now being designed in ever increasing quantities. HDI brings some interesting new solutions to age‐old signal integrity (SI) concerns, and concerns that will grow as rise‐times continue to drop.This article focuses on five major areas of SI concerns—(1) noise: (a) noise‐reflections, (b) noise‐crosstalk, (c) noise‐simultaneous switching; (2) electro‐magnetic interference (EMI); (3) interconnect delays.In each case, HDI offers improvements and alternatives—but it is not a panacea. A couple of “cautions” are listed that can be a major stumbling block to HDI implementation, fortunately, they are not SI based. Important to SI is the materials used in HDI. Although not the focus of this article, the materials selected, as well as the dimensional stack‐up and PCB design rules, will influence SI and electrical performance (impedance, crosstalk and signal conditioning). Miniaturization provided by HDI will be a major contributor to SI performance.Finally, the SI example is also a case study in cost reduction. The “before” and “after” conditions are reviewed to emphasize the cost reduction and “time‐to‐market” advantages of HDI technology.