Human Rights and Development

This paper presents some of the main indices (Freedom House indices of political rights and civil liberties; World Human Rights indices) measuring the level of human rights in the world's countries. By means of principal components analysis, the author obtains six factors out of the original forty items of the World Human Rights. Similarities and differences concerning the values of the various indices in the world's countries are identified and discussed. In order to identify the possible determinants of these similarities and differences, the author analyses the impact of lagged income and educational development on the level of human rights in the world's countries.