A Poset-Generalizability Method for Human Development Indicators

The paper introduces a poset-generalizability perspective for analysing human development indicators. It suggests a new method for identifying admissibility of diferent informational spaces and criteria in human development analysis. From its inception, the Capability Approach has argued for informational pluralism in normative evaluations. But in practice, it has turned its back to other (non-capability) informational spaces for being imperfect, biased or incomplete and providing a mere evidential role in normative evaluations. This paper ofers the construction of a proper method to overcome this shortcoming. It combines tools from poset analysis and generalizability theory to put forward a systematic categorization of cases with diferent informational spaces. It provides illustrations by using key informational spaces, namely, resources, rights, subjective well-being and capabilities. The ofered method is simpler and more concrete than mere human development guidelines and at the same time it avoids results based on automatic calculations. The paper concludes with implications for human development policies and an agenda for further work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fairness: from the ethical principle to the practice of Machine Learning development as an ongoing agreement with stakeholders

This paper clarifies why bias cannot be completely mitigated in Machine Learning (ML) and proposes an end-to-end methodology to translate the ethical principle of justice and fairness into the practice of ML development as an ongoing agreement with stakeholders. The pro-ethical iterative process presented in the paper aims to challenge asymmetric power dynamics in the fairness decision making within ML design and support ML development teams to identify, mitigate and monitor bias at each step of ML systems development. The process also provides guidance on how to explain the always imperfect trade-offs in terms of bias to users

SAF: Stakeholders’ Agreement on Fairness in the Practice of Machine Learning Development

This paper clarifies why bias cannot be completely mitigated in Machine Learning (ML) and proposes an end-to-end methodology to translate the ethical principle of justice and fairness into the practice of ML development as an ongoing agreement with stakeholders. The pro-ethical iterative process presented in the paper aims to challenge asymmetric power dynamics in the fairness decision making within ML design and support ML development teams to identify, mitigate and monitor bias at each step of ML systems development. The process also provides guidance on how to explain the always imperfect trade-offs in terms of bias to users.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sustainability and Human Development Indicators: A Poset Analysis

The paper introduces the methodology of partially ordered sets to evaluate sustainable human development indicators. It shows its importance to the integration of human and environmental indicators, clarifying the limitations of composite indicators and emphasising the need to move towards higher levels of conceptual consistency and solid informational pluralism, incorporating richer social and environmental spaces towards an analytical structure that avoids subjective, arbitrary and potential obscure choices of variables in the analysis of sustainable human development. The paper uses Hasse diagrams and sensitivity analyses to evaluate the evidence offered by the new pressure-adjusted human development index (PHDI). The results indicate that the introduction of CO2 and material pressure indicators produce an excessive number of incomparabilities and affect the role of GNIpc in the determination of countries' partial rankings.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

CRESCIMENTO PRÓ-POBRE NO BRASIL - UMA ANÁLISE EXPLORATÓRIA

The paper investigates the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction in Brazil during the period 1980s-1990s. It briefly reviews the literature on 'pro-poor growth', emphasizing the importance of certain qualitative aspects of growth responsible for enhancing human well-being in Brazil. The paper follows the methodology put forward by Ravallion and Datt (2000) to estimate the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. It also replicates the study of Son (2004), calculating a growth poverty curve by income deciles for Brazil. The results show that only in the 1990s Brazilian states had pro-poor growth and that the poverty reduction effect was heterogeneous among different states.

Human Development Index (HDI) and its family of indexes: an evolving critical review

O índice de desenvolvimento humano (IDH) atualmente é utilizado para diversos fins - desde instrumento para fins comparativos, tomada de decisões até como instrumento para elaboração de políticas públicas. Pela mídia, tem sido usado inclusive para acusar e culpar. Em decorrência disso, este artigovolta-se para os fundamentos que levaram à criação do IDH como um índice alternativo aos indicadores existentes previamente, como o PIB per capita e a renda que eram usados para medir desenvolvimento. Nosso foco principal é no IDH, analisando os aspectos técnicos e também sua evolução. Dado que o IDH se propunha a ser um índice alternativo, podemos dizer que obteve sucesso? Atualmente pode-se dizer que o IDH efetivamente se constitui num avanço, principalmente quando se considera a natureza multidimensional do desenvolvimento. Por outro lado, o IDH foi construído sobre um novo paradigma,que valoriza a avaliação das realizações humanas a partir dos fins e não meios do desenvolvimento. Neste sentido, ainda não se pode tomar o IDH como uma medida adequada de capacitações humanas.The human development index (HDI) is currently used for manypurposes, from a comparative index to a decision-making instrument for public policy decisions. It is also used as a ‘blaming and shaming’ index in the media. For this reason, in this paper we delve into the  foundations of the HDI, exploring to what extent it can be considered an alternative to the use ofthe gross national product (GNP) as the main measure of human development. Our focus is mainly on the HDI and its evolution and unsolved technical issues. Was the HDI successful as an alternative? Given that the established goal was to provide an alternative index to the unidimensional and income centred previous indicators, HDI represents indeed advancement, both in terms of the characterisation of the multidimensional nature of development and in terms of its refined theoretical basis. On the other hand, arguments claiming the introduction of a completely new paradigm, showing a change from the concentration on means towards the promotion of human ends, are far from being settled. The claim that HDI is a capability measure, consideredthe most basic human capabilities, also remains elusive

Valores e Desenvolvimento Humano

A primeira parte desse Relatório de Desenvolvimento Humano do Brasil 2009/2010 começa com a descrição de um amplo processo de consulta aberta à sociedade, denominada Brasil Ponto a Ponto, para a escolha do tema do relatório. A Campanha Brasil Ponto a Ponto teve por objetivo estimular o debate em todo o país sobre o que precisa ser mudado no Brasil para melhorar a vida das pessoas. A campanha foi aberta a todos os brasileiros, que poderiam participar respondendo à pergunta: O que precisa mudar no Brasil para a sua vida melhorar de verdade

Todos e cada um de nós: o interesse público como critério de desenvolvimento humano

Este artigo busca aproximar interesse público e desenvolvimento humano sob a hipótese de que aquele é critério deste. Partindo-se da aceitação de uma abordagem abrangente do interesse público (na qual o seu desenvolvimento jurídico, relacionado à realização de direitos humanos e liberdades básicas, é somado à perspectiva do desenvolvimento humano), expande-se o campo da pesquisa para aproximar o Direito à Economia do Desenvolvimento, na fundação conceitual elementar da chamada “Capability Approach”. Após o entendimento de que o interesse público impõe um senso de vida em comum baseado em valores coletivos e relacionado a um plexo de sentimentos morais que fazem parte da estrutura das sociedades, sustenta-se que esse entendimento deve dirigir ações governamentais e humanas. A demonstração da hipótese de trabalho, realizada por pesquisa exploratória de caráter bibliográfico, comporta uma sugestão de leitura do interesse público vinculado ao desenvolvimento humano em três níveis. Para cada um deles, dispõe-se a análise de métricas usuais de desenvolvimento humano. Todavia, diante do acréscimo do terceiro nível, conclui-se, de modo original na literatura sobre o tema, pela necessidade de desenhar uma métrica alternativa (que evolua as concepções usuais), onde as equações que compõem o desenvolvimento humano incluam o interesse público, o que é realizado, de modo especulativo, com dados colhidos de países da América Latina

Valuing Children: Parents’ Perceptions, Spending Priorities and Children’s Capabilities

This paper provides a composite analysis of children’s academic development grounded on the capability approach. The study utilises a panel dataset comprising 8,422 Chinese children and adolescents aged 6 to 16, observed between 2012 and 2018. It introduces a series of innovative indicators, including a parent advantage index to capture how parents influence their children and a ranking indicator for spending priorities to reify the value of children’s education that families have reasoned. To address unobserved heterogeneity, we adopted fixed-effects models, multilevel modelling, and heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variables. Our primary results show that a 1% increase in the parent advantage index yields an increase of 13.85% to 21.31% in children’s academic development, and the biggest leap in prioritising education-relevant spending increases the child outcomes by 2.88% to 6.57%. By highlighting the influence of parents’ beings and doings, particularly the value they assign to education, this research contributes to the existing literature on child development, which often focuses predominantly on material dimensions. In sum, it expands the frontiers of the capability approach and related research on parental practices. It offers novel insights into how policies can be reinforced to equalise educational opportunities and to boost human capital.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio