An Evaluation of Human Development in Morocco: A Comparative Approach

Abstract

There is no consensus among economists about the nature of the relationship between economic growth and the goal of improving human welfare. After World War II, economists tended to accept that the benefits of growth would trickle down to the poor. Nevertheless, there is an evidence of rising income inequality and a stubborn prevalence of poverty in many developing countries. Such evidence stimulated active concern with promoting more equitable growth. During the 1980s, poverty-oriented policies were pushed to the background by the need to cope with macroeconomic shocks. Since then, concern with poverty- oriented policy has revived, but not as an alternative to concern about growth. The evidence of the past half century shows that growth is necessary for alleviating widespread poverty.

In this regard, income per capita remains the most useful single indicator of development, although it is far from ideal. One limitation is that international comparisons require the conversion of national statistics into common currency units, usually U.S. dollars. A more accurate method uses purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations. This method shows that income differences between rich and poor countries are less acute than one finds in statistics based on exchange rates. Other than income, an alternative comparison method is to use physical measures of structural change such as energy consumption, rural population, life expectancy, and female adult literacy.

This paper uses a comparative approach to evaluate the dynamic of the human development index (HDI) in Morocco. This is an important index that measures national socioeconomic development, based on combining measures of education, health, and adjusted real income per capita