Applying dynamic TOPSIS: a multi-criteria decision-making approach to economic corridors under uncertainty—the case of IMEEC

This study aims to evaluate the ambiguities inherent in establishing the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) and their effect on the expected rate of return for member countries. We focus on six countries along the proposed maritime route—France, India, Italy, Greece, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. Our empirical methodology integrates a dynamic programming monetary model that incorporates shopping time with uncertainty, while the aggregated data on strategic indicators—namely, the Global Food Security Index, Resilience Index, and Service Area Index—is normalized and evaluated using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The results indicate that increased ambiguity leads to a reduction in the expected rate of return, with estimated declines of 12% for France, 15% for India, 19% for Italy, 21% for Greece, 30% for Israel, and 86% for the United Arab Emirates. These findings underscore the critical role of strategic information in mitigating uncertainty and highlight that policy measures, particularly those aimed at enhancing the service area infrastructure in the UAE, can significantly improve investment outcomes in the IMEEC.This paper introduces a practical way to measure and manage ambiguity in large connectivity projects by combining a dynamic “shopping time” macro framework with TOPSIS and Shannon entropy to aggregate three strategic indicators—food security (GFSI), resilience (RI), and service area (SER)—for the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC). We derive a new criterion, the Distance Elasticity of the Expected Rate of Return, showing how uncertainty directly erodes investors’ expected returns and how this effect differs by country. Empirically, greater strategic information (higher SER/RI/GFSI) is associated with higher expected returns, while weak service‐area accessibility is the dominant source of ambiguity (notably in the UAE). Policy implications are immediate: targeted upgrades to port‐connected service areas, resilience building, and coordinated food-security arrangements can materially reduce ambiguity, lower corridor transaction time, and raise expected returns, offering a decision tool for governments, financiers, and operators.