Chaotic signals from HDI measurement

The Human Development Index (HDI) is designed to provide a development meas ure competing with GDP, and it has been reformed several times to this end. The 1996 and 1997 reports, however, reveal a severe new flaw in the HDI: t he transformation of GDP changes into the index of human development is com pletely misleading, as higher real per capita GDP often causes lower HDI va lues, and vice-versa. This transformation is generally highly sensitive to the initial GDP, resulting in chaotic transformation patterns. Relatively m arginal modifications to the measurement of HDI could solve this problem.