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Historical index of human development on Scandinavian countries 1820-2020 : construction and interpretation

Grytten, Daniel Valen
Master thesis
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URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2735461
Date
2020
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  • Master Thesis [3375]
Abstract
This thesis calculates and analyses wealth through the Historical Index of Human

Development, which is constructed to account for both economic (GDP per capita/income) and

social variables (life expectancy/health and education). Through three research questions we

explore and analyse: (1) what the human development levels were for Denmark, Norway and

Sweden from 1820 to 2020, with 2019 being our last year for our time series. (2) How well

economic growth reflects human development. (3) How much each parameter of the HIHD

contribute to its development.

To analyse these questions we (1) construct the HIHD by first calculating the indices for

income, health and education for our time period in question. This we analysed through a

comparative analysis where we found that: all Scandinavian countries were at least at the

OECD average in the 19th and 20th century and that among these Denmark and Norway were

above this average while Sweden was around it. Additionally, we discovered that Norway and

Denmark were at more or less the same level during the 19th century. During the 20th century

all three countries outpaced the average of the wealthy OECD. The short run development was

significantly more uniform between Sweden and Norway than between Denmark and Norway.

Further, we (2) conducted a quantitative analysis of the relationship between GDP per capita

in fixed prices and the HIHDs for Denmark, Sweden and Norway finding that there is a high

correlation between the long term HIHD and GDP per capita. That the short term corelation is

not as strong as the long-term, due to larger fluctuations in GDP than HIHD. We also found

that GDP per capita does not reflect human development to a satisfactory degree and, therefore,

also fails at reflecting living standard and economic development. Finally, we (3) analyse GDP,

education and life expectancy’s relative weights in annual HIHD series which helped us deduce

that GDP per capita is the most important contributor to HIHD, but it declines in importance

over time. Education was and is the second largest contributor with its contribution increasing

moderately. Life expectancy was and is the lowest contributor, however, its contribution

doubled from 1820 to 2019. Norway’s surprisingly well performance during the 19th century

is largely due to their high life expectancy rates. Sweden was clearly inferior to Denmark and

Norway in writing skills during the first half of the 19th century, which made their HIHD fall

relative to their Scandinavian neighbours.

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