The Geography of Well-being in Colombia
Jesús Peiró-Palomino (),
Andres Picazo-Tadeo and
Emili Tortosa-Ausina
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Jesús Peiró-Palomino: INTECO and Department of Economic Structure, Universitat de València, Spain
No 2020/03, Working Papers from Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain)
Abstract:
This paper provides a composite indicator of well-being for the 33 Colombian departments in the year 2016. The indicator is built by adapting the well-known OECD Better Life Index to the regional level, and includes the dimensions of income, health, education, safety, housing, environment, labour market, and civic engagement and governance. As to the methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis and Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making techniques are employed, an approach which enables a comparison of well-being across departments and the construction of rankings. The results yield several take-away messages. First, there are substantial disparities in well-being across Colombian departments. Second, despite the fact that average well-being in Colombia is relatively low, the population is concentrated in the departments with the highest well-being levels. Third, geography matters, as neighbouring departments have similar well-being levels, giving rise to a core-periphery duality. Fourth, well-being generally improves and disparities decline when purely economic dimensions (income and labour market) are excluded from the composite indicator.
Keywords: Colombia; composite indicators; departments; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C16 O18 O47 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jau:wpaper:2020/03
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