Reflections on the activity index and related indicators

Ronald Rousseau and Liying Yang

Journal of Informetrics, 2012, vol. 6, issue 3, 413-421

Abstract: We point out some theoretical problems in the construction of the activity index and related indicators. Concretely, if the activity index is larger than one then it is, at least theoretically, possible to decrease its value by increasing the activity in that field. Although for some practical applications these problems do not seem to have serious consequences our investigation adds to the list of problematic indicators. As the problems we point out are due to the mathematical structure of this indicator our analysis also applies to all indicators formed in the same way, such as the revealed comparative advantage index or Balassa index.

Keywords: Relative indicators; Activity index; Revealed comparative advantage index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157712000053
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:6:y:2012:i:3:p:413-421

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2012.01.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().