The official Italian well-being measuring system (“Equitable and Sustainable Well-being—BES”) is probably the worldwide most advanced attempt to pursue the beyond GDP perspective effectively. In it, well-being is described in terms of 12 domains and a complex multi-indicator system of around 130 indicators, drawn mainly from Istat (official Italian statistical bureau) surveys and administrative archives. In order to get a more synthetic view of well-being, in the last four BES reports Istat employed aggregative procedures providing composite indicators for each well-being domain. The aggregative road to synthesis is however problematic, when complex and non-highly correlated indicator systems are to be summarized, mainly due to its compensative nature and interpretational difficulties. As a valuable alternative, in this paper we adopt a non-aggregative approach to synthesis, based on Partially Ordered Set Theory (Poset Theory) and show how it can be used to provide more “complexity-preserving”insights into well-being. In particular, we describe each well-being domain as a partially ordered set and compute synthetic indicators for well-being rankings at regional level for year 2017, getting more robust and interpretable results than with mainstream aggregative procedures.
Alaimo, L., Arcagni, A., Fattore, M., Maggino, F., Quondamstefano, V. (2022). Measuring Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being in Italian Regions: The Non-aggregative Approach. SOCIAL INDICATORS RESEARCH, 161(2-3), 711-733 [10.1007/s11205-020-02388-7].
Measuring Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being in Italian Regions: The Non-aggregative Approach
Fattore M.;
2022
Abstract
The official Italian well-being measuring system (“Equitable and Sustainable Well-being—BES”) is probably the worldwide most advanced attempt to pursue the beyond GDP perspective effectively. In it, well-being is described in terms of 12 domains and a complex multi-indicator system of around 130 indicators, drawn mainly from Istat (official Italian statistical bureau) surveys and administrative archives. In order to get a more synthetic view of well-being, in the last four BES reports Istat employed aggregative procedures providing composite indicators for each well-being domain. The aggregative road to synthesis is however problematic, when complex and non-highly correlated indicator systems are to be summarized, mainly due to its compensative nature and interpretational difficulties. As a valuable alternative, in this paper we adopt a non-aggregative approach to synthesis, based on Partially Ordered Set Theory (Poset Theory) and show how it can be used to provide more “complexity-preserving”insights into well-being. In particular, we describe each well-being domain as a partially ordered set and compute synthetic indicators for well-being rankings at regional level for year 2017, getting more robust and interpretable results than with mainstream aggregative procedures.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.