Communicating the uncertainty of synthetic indicators: a reassessment of the HDI ranking

Tommaso Luzzati (), Bruno Cheli and Gianluca Gucciardi

Discussion Papers from Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: Composite indicators convert information about different facets of a given phenomenon into a single figure. Unavoidably, the conversion processE involves a high level of arbitrariness, which, in general, makes the results not robust. The approach to composite indicators used in this paper aims at mitigating this problem and makes final users more aware of the unavoidable uncertainty of the results (e.g. rankings) based on a given composite. We illustrate our approach by applying it to the Human Development Index.

Keywords: Human Development Index; complexity; composite indicators; robustness; uncertainty analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 I31 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-01-01
Note: ISSN 2039-1854
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pie:dsedps:2017/228

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