EVI: A Retrospective Economic Vulnerability Index for Development Analysis

FERDI's Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI) is a structural vulnerability indicator used by the United Nations to identify Least Developed Countries. The index is a simple arithmetic mean of two sub-indices: exposure to shocks (based on population size, remoteness, export concentration, agriculture share of GDP, and low-elevation coastal population) and magnitude of shocks (based on natural disaster victims, agricultural production instability, and export instability). It provides a retrospective measure of a country's susceptibility to unforeseen exogenous economic disruptions.

Use Cases

• Identifying and classifying Least Developed Countries (LDCs) based on the UN's structural vulnerability criterion.
• Informing the allocation of official development assistance (ODA) using a proposed vulnerability-based criterion.
• Analyzing a country's exposure to economic shocks based on its population, geography, and export profile.
• Studying the impact of natural disasters and agricultural instability on long-term economic development.
• Benchmarking structural economic risk across countries over time using a standardized composite index.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on Dataverse and Figshare signals established use and importance in the research community.
• The index methodology is explicitly detailed, specifying the two sub-indices and their eight component indicators.
• One source lists a file size of 1,968,271 bytes, suggesting a dataset of substantial detail.

Limitations

• Column names and exact row counts are not provided in any source, limiting understanding of the data's granular structure.
• Conflicting author attribution: listed as 'Cariolle, Joël' on Dataverse and 'Issakha THIAM' on Figshare.
• The description is highly theoretical; documentation on data collection methods and specific time coverage is absent.

Provenance

Source

FERDI (Fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international)

Collection Method

Synthetic index construction from secondary statistical sources, as described by Guillaumont (2008, 2009).

Time Range

Retrospective, but specific start and end years are not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 on Dataverse (platforms show updates in June 2026).

Geography

Country-level, likely covering nations assessed for UN LDC status and development aid.