On Infrastructure and Economic Development

This study aims at quantifying the relationship between economic development and infrastructure. A macro concept, infrastructure has many components. How and to what extent each component affects development are explicitly examined from the angle of human development. A mathematical digression on the concept and measurement of human development is made in this paper and alternative Human Development Indices (HDI) are analytically discussed. The question of sensitivity of alternative HD indices is also examined. The quantitative study on the relationship between infrastructure and human development is made using West Bengal's district level data for the years 1980-81, 1990-91, 1995-96 and 1999-2000.