IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jau/wpaper/2018-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing well-being in European regions. Does government quality matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Jesús Peiró-Palomino

    (Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)

  • Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo

    (Department of Applied Economics II, University of Valencia, Spain)

Abstract

This paper contributes a composite indicator of well-being for 168 European regions built with data from 10 well-being domains provided by the OECD Regional Well- being Dataset. Regions are then ranked according to their respective levels of well-being. Furthermore, the role of the quality of regional governments in explaining well-being dis- parities is assessed using data from the Quality of Government EU Regional Dataset. Results reveal notable well-being differences across European regions, especially between core and periphery ones, with the former enjoying higher well-being. In addition, government quali- ty is found to boost regional well-being, although uneven impacts are found for core and periphery regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "Assessing well-being in European regions. Does government quality matter?," Working Papers 2018/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
  • Handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2018/06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.doctreballeco.uji.es/wpficheros/Peiro_and_Picazo_06_2018.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2005. "Beyond outcomes: measuring procedural utility," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 90-111, January.
    2. Bjørnskov, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Fischer, Justina A.V., 2010. "Formal institutions and subjective well-being: Revisiting the cross-country evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 419-430, December.
    3. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    4. Leopold Simar & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2006. "On Testing Equality of Distributions of Technical Efficiency Scores," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 497-522.
    5. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    6. Osman Zaim & Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf, 2001. "An Economic Approach to Achievement and Improvement Indexes," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 91-118, October.
    7. Hideyuki Mizobuchi, 2014. "Measuring World Better Life Frontier: A Composite Indicator for OECD Better Life Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 987-1007, September.
    8. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang, 2008. "How's Your Government? International Evidence Linking Good Government and Well-Being," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 595-619, October.
    9. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Ed Diener & Louis Tay & Cody Xuereb, 2013. "The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being," CEP Discussion Papers dp1236, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross‐Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
    11. Welsch, Heinz, 2004. "Corruption, growth, and the environment: a cross-country analysis," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(5), pages 663-693, October.
    12. Mariano Rojas, 2011. "The ‘Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’ Report and Quality of Life: Moving Forward," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 169-180, May.
    13. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "OECD: One or Many? Ranking Countries with a Composite Well-Being Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 847-869, October.
    14. Knox Lovell, C. A. & Pastor, Jesus T. & Turner, Judi A., 1995. "Measuring macroeconomic performance in the OECD: A comparison of European and non-European countries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 507-518, December.
    15. Ernest Reig‐Martínez & José A. Gómez‐Limón & Andrés J. Picazo‐Tadeo, 2011. "Ranking farms with a composite indicator of sustainability," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42(5), pages 561-575, September.
    16. Chang-ming Hsieh, 2004. "To Weight or not to Weight: The Role of Domain Importance in Quality of Life Measurement," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 68(2), pages 163-174, September.
    17. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang & Grover, Shawn & Wang, Shun, 2018. "Empirical linkages between good governance and national well-being," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1332-1346.
    18. Oleg Badunenko & Harald Tauchmann, 2016. "SIMARWILSON: Stata module to perform Simar & Wilson (2007) efficiency analysis," Statistical Software Components S458156, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 24 Feb 2021.
    19. Luca Stanca, 2010. "The Geography of Economics and Happiness: Spatial Patterns in the Effects of Economic Conditions on Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 115-133, October.
    20. Martine Durand, 2015. "The OECD Better Life Initiative: How's Life? and the Measurement of Well-Being," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 4-17, March.
    21. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1995. "Institutions and Economic Performance: Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Indicators," MPRA Paper 23118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Jorge Guardiola & Andrés Picazo-Tadeo, 2014. "Building Weighted-Domain Composite Indices of Life Satisfaction with Data Envelopment Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 257-274, May.
    23. J. Ott, 2011. "Government and Happiness in 130 Nations: Good Governance Fosters Higher Level and More Equality of Happiness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 3-22, May.
    24. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    25. Marta Orviska & Anetta Caplanova & John Hudson, 2014. "The Impact of Democracy on Well-being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 493-508, January.
    26. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    27. Peter Ven, 2015. "Introduction to the Symposium on “New Measures of Well-Being: Perspectives from Statistical Offices”," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 1-3, March.
    28. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    29. Jan Lorenz & Christoph Brauer & Dirk Lorenz, 2017. "Rank-Optimal Weighting or “How to be Best in the OECD Better Life Index?”," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 75-92, October.
    30. Cristina Bernini & Andrea Guizzardi & Giovanni Angelini, 2013. "DEA-Like Model and Common Weights Approach for the Construction of a Subjective Community Well-Being Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 405-424, November.
    31. Jan Ott, 2010. "Greater Happiness for a Greater Number: Some Non-controversial Options for Governments," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(5), pages 631-647, October.
    32. Akihiro Hashimoto & Migaku Kodama, 1997. "Has Livability of Japan Gotten Better for 1956–1990?: a Dea Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 359-373, May.
    33. Marc Fleurbaey, 2015. "Beyond Income and Wealth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 199-219, June.
    34. Miriam A. Golden & Lucio Picci, 2005. "Proposal For A New Measure Of Corruption, Illustrated With Italian Data," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17, pages 37-75, March.
    35. Pilar Murias & Fidel Martinez & Carlos Miguel, 2006. "An Economic Wellbeing Index for the Spanish Provinces: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 77(3), pages 395-417, July.
    36. Li, Xiao-Bai & Reeves, Gary R., 1999. "A multiple criteria approach to data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 507-517, June.
    37. N Adler & B Golany, 2002. "Including principal component weights to improve discrimination in data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 53(9), pages 985-991, September.
    38. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2015. "Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 315-346, June.
    39. Mo, Pak Hung, 2001. "Corruption and Economic Growth," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 66-79, March.
    40. Miriam A. Golden & Lucio Picci, 2005. "Proposal For A New Measure Of Corruption, Illustrated With Italian Data," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 37-75, March.
    41. Hideyuki Mizobuchi, 2017. "Incorporating Sustainability Concerns in the Better Life Index: Application of Corrected Convex Non-parametric Least Squares Method," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 947-971, April.
    42. Laurens Cherchye & Willem Moesen & Nicky Rogge & Tom Puyenbroeck, 2007. "An Introduction to ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ Composite Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 111-145, May.
    43. Sinuany-Stern, Zilla & Friedman, Lea, 1998. "DEA and the discriminant analysis of ratios for ranking units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 470-478, December.
    44. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2015. "Erratum to: Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 1059-1059, December.
    45. Petra Böhnke, 2008. "Does Society Matter? Life Satisfaction in the Enlarged Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 189-210, June.
    46. Pamela Abbott & Claire Wallace, 2014. "Rising Economic Prosperity and Social Quality the Case of New Member States of the European Union," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 419-439, January.
    47. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2007. "A mathematical programming approach to constructing composite indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 291-297, April.
    48. Dyson, R. G. & Allen, R. & Camanho, A. S. & Podinovski, V. V. & Sarrico, C. S. & Shale, E. A., 2001. "Pitfalls and protocols in DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 245-259, July.
    49. C Kao & H-T Hung, 2005. "Data envelopment analysis with common weights: the compromise solution approach," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(10), pages 1196-1203, October.
    50. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2014. "Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 68-90, January.
    51. Mauro, Paolo, 1998. "Corruption and the composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 263-279, June.
    52. D K Despotis, 2002. "Improving the discriminating power of DEA: focus on globally efficient units," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 53(3), pages 314-323, March.
    53. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    54. Kevin Morgan, 1997. "The Learning Region: Institutions, Innovation and Regional Renewal," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 491-503.
    55. D K Despotis, 2005. "A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(8), pages 969-980, August.
    56. Jan Ott, 2010. "Good Governance and Happiness in Nations: Technical Quality Precedes Democracy and Quality Beats Size," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 353-368, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jordi Paniagua & Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2021. "Asylum Migration in OECD Countries: In Search of Lost Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 1109-1137, February.
    2. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo & Vicente Rios, 2020. "Social Progress Around the World: Measurement, Evolution and Convergence," Working Papers 2006, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    3. Roberta Capello & Silvia Cerisola, 2020. "Concentrated versus diffused growth assets: agglomeration economies and regional cohesion," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 1440-1453, December.
    4. Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2021. "Merging macroeconomic and territorial determinants of regional growth: the MASST4 model," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(1), pages 19-56, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "OECD: One or Many? Ranking Countries with a Composite Well-Being Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 847-869, October.
    2. Jesús Peiró‐Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo‐Tadeo & Vicente Rios, 2020. "Well‐being in European regions: Does government quality matter?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 555-582, June.
    3. Jorge Guardiola & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2013. "Weighting life domains with Data Envelopment Analysis," Working Papers 1311, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    4. Jorge Guardiola & Andrés Picazo-Tadeo, 2014. "Building Weighted-Domain Composite Indices of Life Satisfaction with Data Envelopment Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 257-274, May.
    5. Jose Manuel Cordero & Cristina Polo & Javier Salinas-Jiménez, 2021. "Subjective Well-Being and Heterogeneous Contexts: A Cross-National Study Using Semi-Nonparametric Frontier Methods," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 867-886, February.
    6. Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2021. "Measuring well-being in Colombian departments. The role of geography and demography," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Jordi Paniagua & Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2021. "Asylum Migration in OECD Countries: In Search of Lost Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 1109-1137, February.
    8. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2020. "The Geography of Well-being in Colombia," Working Papers 2020/03, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    9. Ernest Reig, 2012. "Building an Enlarged Human Development Indicator: Europe and the Southern Mediterranean Basin," Working Papers 1203, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    10. Ernest Reig-Martínez, 2013. "Social and Economic Wellbeing in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: Building an Enlarged Human Development Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 527-547, April.
    11. Mariano, Enzo Barberio & Sobreiro, Vinicius Amorim & Rebelatto, Daisy Aparecida do Nascimento, 2015. "Human development and data envelopment analysis: A structured literature review," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 33-49.
    12. Antonella Rita Ferrara & Rosanna Nisticò, 2019. "Does Institutional Quality Matter for Multidimensional Well-Being Inequalities? Insights from Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 1063-1105, October.
    13. Vincenzo Patrizii & Anna Pettini & Giuliano Resce, 2017. "The Cost of Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 985-1010, September.
    14. De Luca, Giacomo & Lisi, Domenico & Martorana, Marco & Siciliani, Luigi, 2021. "Does higher Institutional Quality improve the Appropriateness of Healthcare Provision?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    15. Oliveira, Renata & Zanella, Andreia & Camanho, Ana S., 2019. "The assessment of corporate social responsibility: The construction of an industry ranking and identification of potential for improvement," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(2), pages 498-513.
    16. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang & Grover, Shawn & Wang, Shun, 2018. "Empirical linkages between good governance and national well-being," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1332-1346.
    17. Mocetti, Sauro & Orlando, Tommaso, 2019. "Corruption, workforce selection and mismatch in the public sector," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    18. Qiang Li & Lian An, 2020. "Corruption Takes Away Happiness: Evidence from a Cross-National Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 485-504, February.
    19. Yamamura, Eiji & Andrés, Antonio R., 2011. "Does corruption affect suicide? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," MPRA Paper 31622, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Giménez, Víctor & Thieme, Claudio & Prior, Diego & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2022. "Evaluation and determinants of preschool effectiveness in Chile," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Composite well-being indicators; European regions; government quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • R50 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jau:wpaper:2018/06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: María Aurora Garcia Gallego (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ueujies.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.