Has the world moved forward? A robust multidimensional evaluation

This paper presents a multidimensional normative framework to evaluate whether the world moved forward between 1980 and 2008. We focus on the robustness of the results when attributing different weights to the different dimensions. Population-weighted international welfare has not worsened over this period. However, the trend in the underlying inequality is ambiguous, once sufficient weight is given to longevity and/or income.