How do Economic Crises Affect Regional Human Development? An Investigation of the 2008 Global Crisis

In this study, we examine the impact of the 2008 Global Crisis on the Human Development Index (i.e. HDI) values of 149 countries. Over the 1980 to 2013 period, there has been a gradual and consistent improvement in the index values for the overall sample. However, our results show that this improvement has slowed down sharply after the 2008 crisis. This slowing down differs from region to region. For Latin American and the Caribbean countries, the East Asia and the Pacific countries, and Sub-Saharan Africa countries, the slowdown started in 2008. For European and Central Asian countries, the slowdown started in 2011. For Arab States and South Asian countries, the slowdown is not statistically significant. Interestingly, the Sub-Saharan Africa countries have been more resilient compared to some of the other regions.