A RECONSIDERATION OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CENTRAL ASIA
A RECONSIDERATION OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN CENTRAL ASIA

Summary/Abstract: Economic development, once viewed as a synonymous concept with economic growth, is now widely recognized as connoting societal progress. While such notions as progress and quality of life may be difficult to quantify, one empirical measure of development has received ample attention in both the academic literature and popular press. Since the early 1990s the United Nations has released its annual Human Development Index (HDI), which provides a quantitative measure of development using state-level income (output), health, and education data. If intra-regional variations in economic development within Central Asia are of concern, however, the HDI seems inadequate. A revised, regionspecific economic development index is constructed here, adding to the existing HDI variables the measures of corruption, income inequality, infant mortality, and undernourishment. Applying this new index to Central Asia reveals some change in the results of the HDI, while still exposing stark variations in intra-regional economic development levels. As there may be more intra-regional variation in levels of economic development than uncovered by the HDI, the widely discussed economic integration efforts within Central Asia are expected to face significant obstacles.

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