The Dynamics of Human Development in Romania during the 1899-1999 Period

The paper proposes a methodology to estimate the dynamics of a country’s human development in the long run. The methodology maintains the three core dimensions of the Human Development Index (HDI) proposed by the United Nations Development Programme and uses the yearly average rates instead of normalized values. This way, we are able to define yearly average rate of human development (YARHU) of the considered country. The methodology is applied to the case of Romania for the 1899-1999 period. The period belongs to two Kondratieff cycles of Romania’s economy (1888-1947 and 1948-1999). The results reveal a moderate dynamics of human development during the considered century in the context of adverse external shocks and contradictory internal structural changes. The dynamics of human development during the 1899-1947 period was slower in comparison to the 1948-1999 period. During the 1899-1947 period, the educational indicators, i.e. the literacy degree and enrolment degree, contributed significantly to the human development dynamics, while during the 1947-1999 period, the higher yearly average rate of human development was obtained especially due to the growth of the gross domestic product per capita.