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OECD's ‘Better Life Index’: can any country be well ranked?

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  • J�rôme Kasparian
  • Antoine Rolland

Abstract

We critically review the Better Life Index (BLI) recently introduced by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). We discuss methodological issues in the definition of the criteria used to rank the countries, as well as in their aggregation method. Moreover, we explore the unique option offered by the BLI to apply one's own weight set to 11 criteria. Although 16 countries can be ranked first by choosing ad hoc weightings, only Canada, Australia and Sweden do so over a substantial fraction of the parameter space defined by all possible weight sets. Furthermore, most pairwise comparisons between countries are insensitive to the choice of the weights. Therefore, the BLI establishes a hierarchy among the evaluated countries, independent of the chosen set of weights.

Suggested Citation

  • J�rôme Kasparian & Antoine Rolland, 2012. "OECD's ‘Better Life Index’: can any country be well ranked?," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(10), pages 2223-2230, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:japsta:v:39:y:2012:i:10:p:2223-2230
    DOI: 10.1080/02664763.2012.706265
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jean-Charles Billaut & Denis Bouyssou & Philippe Vincke, 2009. "Should you believe in the Shanghai ranking? An MCDM view," Working Papers hal-00877050, HAL.
    2. Giuseppe Munda, 2008. "Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation for a Sustainable Economy," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-73703-2, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Barrington-Leigh & Alice Escande, 2018. "Measuring Progress and Well-Being: A Comparative Review of Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 893-925, February.
    2. Jad Chaaban & Alexandra Irani & Alexander Khoury, 2016. "The Composite Global Well-Being Index (CGWBI): A New Multi-Dimensional Measure of Human Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 465-487, October.
    3. Giovanni Bertin & Ludovico Carrino & Silvio Giove, 2018. "The Italian Regional Well-Being in a Multi-expert Non-additive Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 15-51, January.
    4. Koen Decancq, 2017. "Measuring Multidimensional Inequality in the OECD Member Countries with a Distribution-Sensitive Better Life Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 1057-1086, April.
    5. von Reumont, Louisa & Schöb, Ronnie & Hetschko, Clemens, 2017. "Embedding Effects in the OECD Better Life Index," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168133, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Judit Oláh & Zuzana Hajduová & Roman Lacko & Pavol Andrejovský, 2020. "Quality of Life Regional Differences: Case of Self-Governing Regions of Slovakia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-13, April.
    7. Serap TAŞKAYA, 2020. "Impact of the Provinces’ Gross Domestic Product Per Capita on the Better Life Index: An Analysis at the Level of Provinces Abstract: Recent studies on determining the impact of income on quality of li," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 28(45).

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