A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand .

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1975

Development means creating the conditions for the realization of human needs. Its evaluation must therefore take into accost economic as well as social dimensions. G.N.P. or Per Capita Income can grow rapidly without any significant improvement in poverty, unemployment, inequality, etc . .. So ,development must be measured more comprehensively using a multi-dimensional approach. In this study, twenty four factors are selected and grouped into five distinct dimensions of development: (1) Economic, (2) Level of living, (3) Human resources, (4) Cultural, and (S) Demographic. Taxonomic method is first used to determine the dimensional indices. Correlation analysis is then used to find the relative weightage for each of the above dimensions in order to obtain a composite development index. Seventy eight countries in the world, with available data, are studied for ranking and scaling using the composite development index, and twelve of them, specially, in Asia, are studied to measure the development trend during the last decade.