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DEA-Like Model and Common Weights Approach for the Construction of a Subjective Community Well-Being Indicator

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Abstract

A growing literature assesses the quality of life and well-being in geographically and/or politically divided areas. The paper proposes a new subjective well being (SWB) indicator based on residents’ satisfaction with environment and community, personal life and leisure activities. Our approach is a novel construction and new application of the well-being index, specifically, a DEA-like model with common weights under the benefit of the doubt (BoD) approach. This approach is very interesting in the SWB framework, allowing us to differentiate efficient individuals or estimate the relative importance of each domain in the SWB indicator. The results state that Personal life is the domain that most profoundly affects SWB index; it also differs in groups of individuals and geographic spaces.

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Notes

  1. Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters (2004) and van Praag (2007) show that assuming cardinality or ordinality of the answers to general satisfaction questions is relatively unimportant to results.

  2. In the following we adopt the WSM approach because in the general DEA framework sub-indicators are linearly aggregated into one single index. As evidenced in Cherchye et al. (2007), an alternative would be the geometric aggregation, which can be ‘linearized’ (by taking logarithms) such that one obtains a model that has a formally similar structure as the basic BoD model. However, additional (absolute weight) constraints to preserve unit invariance for this model are needed, which may not always lead to feasible solutions. Furthermore, in our framework the WSM approach well reflects the additive separability assumed for the satisfaction function.

  3. They are: Composite Leading Indicator (CLI), Governance Indicator, Human Development Index (HDI), Technology Achievement Index (TAI), Official Development Assistance (ODA) Rankings, Food Insecurity, Science and Technology Indicators, Ecological Footprint, Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Global Competitiveness Index.

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  1. Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, Via Belle Arti, 41, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Cristina Bernini, Andrea Guizzardi & Giovanni Angelini

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  1. Cristina Bernini
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  2. Andrea Guizzardi
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Correspondence to Cristina Bernini.

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Bernini, C., Guizzardi, A. & Angelini, G. DEA-Like Model and Common Weights Approach for the Construction of a Subjective Community Well-Being Indicator. Soc Indic Res 114, 405–424 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0152-3

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