Convergence in ‘standards of living’ across countries is an important phenomenon that drew attraction of the researchers in economics during the last two decades. These studies take into account the growth of per capita gross domestic product or labour productivity as a measure of standard of living. The present study attempts to measure the standard of living in terms of the human development index which reflect the human well-being better than income or productivity and examines whether standards of living converge across economies over a fairly long period of time, such as 35 years (1960–1995). The convergence test has been attempted for the full sample as well as for three levels of human development. The study uses the convergence test introduced by Baumol. The tests indicate that in almost for all the cases divergence has been observed. Divergence is also observed for per capita real gross domestic product for all types of sample.

Human development Index (HDI) was introduced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1990. For the first four years UNDP used the maximum and the minimum values of the data series to standardize the variables. In 1994 the procedure of standardization was modified with the introduction of arbitrary fixed minimum and maximum values for each variable. Both methods have merits and demerits. The present study proposes an alternative measure of estimating HDI which bridges the gap between the methods of computing HDI proposed by the UNDP in 1990 and 1994. This study also incorporates unadjusted per capita real gross domestic product (PCRGDP) instead of adjusted PCRGDP used by the UNDP. The data from the Human Development Report (HDR) 2000 for 174 countries are used to test the robustness of the suggested index and the results are compared to those of the HDI. Also average values for full sample as well as top 20 percent and bottom 20 percent are offered to show the superiority of our method to that of the UNDP's HDI.Human Development Index (HDI), Rescaled New Human Development Index (RNHDI), Fixed goal posts, Moving goal posts, D2- statistics,

Purpose -This study attempts to find the socio-economic factors behind the differential achievement level in adult literacy in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach -Considers a number of theories. These include modernization theory, dependency/world systems theory, developmental state theory, new human ecology theory and convergence-divergence theory as an explanation of the differential level of adult literacy rate. Findings -The findings reveal the importance of the initial level of adult literacy and the population growth. Similarly short-term economic growth has a significant impact on the initial level of adult literacy, and the medium human development and low human development samples Originality/value -This attempt to find the factors behind adult literacy is of importance not only as a constituent indicator of the human development index, but also through its various contributions towards economic growth.

. This is an attempt to examine whether there is any causal relation between social development and economic growth. Social development in this context is measured by a social development index, which is a weighted composite index formed with eight social indicators of life representing various spheres of social life. Economic growth is indicated by Per Capita Real Gross Domestic Product (PCRGDP), The causality test offered by Granger has been performed for the entire sample as well as for three income groups: high, middle and low. The study also tests causality between PCRGDP and the eight social indicators of life.

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