Testing for the implicit weights of the dimensions of the Human Development Index using stochastic dominance

•Weight allocation to sub-indices of the Human Development Index is assessed.•Stochastic Dominance Efficiency method is used to evaluate the implicit weights.•The implicit weight attached to the education dimension is relatively low.•The implicit weight attached to the health dimension is relatively high.•Results suggest health index contribute more to the improvement of the index.

In 2010, United Nations' Development Programme changed the indicators used to obtain education and income indices in the Human Development Index (HDI). In this paper, we use the Stochastic Dominance Efficiency methodology to evaluate the implicit weights of the dimensions used in the new measurement of the HDI. We find, contrary to the earlier literature, that the implicit weight attached to the education dimension is relatively low suggesting that it is relatively harder to achieve high scores in this dimension compared to other dimensions.