Recognizing the complexity of Development as a subject, this paper is intended, initially, to present some of its dominant conceptions while trying to classify them according to the similarity of their approaches. Following this introduction, some questions are raised about the instrumentalization of such concepts and their forms of measurement. This analysis offers some new insights to those interested in the theme, while evidencing how the theoretical background of each interpretation determines the architecture and the construction of the main indicators and indexes used to measure this phenomenon.