IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v118y2014i1p45-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Application of the “Benefit-Of-the-Doubt” Approach for the Construction of a Digital Access Indicator: A Revaluation of the “Digital Access Index”

Author

Listed:
  • Hassen Gaaloul
  • Soulef Khalfallah

Abstract

The use of composite indicators as a tool for ranking and making decisions is ever increasing in a world marked by the inequalities and competition in all domains. However, the dependence of countries ranking on the weighing scheme used to aggregate individual indices or sub-indicators, most of the time set by experts/stakeholders may weaken the credibility of composite indicators. One method which is able to overcome these limits is the “Data Envelopment Analysis” approach, particularly named “Benefit-Of-the-Doubt” in the context of composite indicators’ construction. We propose a revaluation of the Digital Access Index given that Information technology is the most important factor driving improvement in a wide array of areas critical for the quality of life for individuals as well as societies. We have shown that this method is more suitable for identifying trends and drawing attention to particular issues and also for setting policy priorities. In fact, the weights of the individual indices, used to compute the composite indicators are based on the data itself and are proper for the country under consideration. These weights contain adequate information in order to help policy-makers to better understand the nature of the new innovation economy and the types of public policies needed to drive innovation, productivity and broad-based prosperity for its citizens. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Hassen Gaaloul & Soulef Khalfallah, 2014. "Application of the “Benefit-Of-the-Doubt” Approach for the Construction of a Digital Access Indicator: A Revaluation of the “Digital Access Index”," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 45-56, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:118:y:2014:i:1:p:45-56
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0422-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-013-0422-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-013-0422-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laurens Cherchye & Wim Moesen & Tom Van Puyenbroeck, 2004. "Legitimately Diverse, yet Comparable: On Synthesizing Social Inclusion Performance in the EU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 919-955, December.
    2. Roll, Y & Golany, B., 1993. "Alternate methods of treating factor weights in DEA," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 99-109, January.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Laurens Cherchye & & Timo Kuosmanen, 2002. "Benchmarking Sustainable Development: A Synthetic Meta-index Approach," Others 0210001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Dec 2002.
    6. Laurens Cherchye, 2001. "Using data envelopment analysis to assess macroeconomic policy performance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 407-416.
    7. Francisco Pedraja-Chaparro & Javier Salinas-Jimenez & Peter Smith, 1997. "On the Role of Weight Restrictions in Data Envelopment Analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 215-230, May.
    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. Giannis Karagiannis, 2017. "On aggregate composite indicators," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(7), pages 741-746, July.
    2. 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).
    3. Su, Weihua & Chen, Sibo & Zhang, Chonghui & Li, Kevin W., 2023. "A subgroup dominance-based benefit of the doubt method for addressing rank reversals: A case study of the human development index in Europe," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(3), pages 1299-1317.
    4. Ravanos, Panagiotis & Karagiannis, Giannis, 2022. "Tricks with the BoD model and an application to the e-Government Development Index," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Alessandro Magrini & Francesca Giambona, 2022. "A Composite Indicator to Assess Sustainability of Agriculture in European Union Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 1003-1036, October.
    6. Gulati, Rachita & Kattumuri, Ruth & Kumar, Sunil, 2020. "A non-parametric index of corporate governance in the banking industry: An application to Indian data," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Giménez, Víctor & Prior, Diego & Thieme, Claudio & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2024. "International comparisons of COVID-19 pandemic management: What can be learned from activity analysis techniques?," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Fu-Chiang Yang & Rui-Hsin Kao & Yi-Tui Chen & Yueh-Fei Ho & Cheng-Chung Cho & Shi-Wei Huang, 2018. "A Common Weight Approach to Construct Composite Indicators: The Evaluation of Fourteen Emerging Markets," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(2), pages 463-479, June.
    9. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    10. Karagiannis, Roxani & Karagiannis, Giannis, 2018. "Intra- and inter-group composite indicators using the BoD model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 44-51.
    11. Claudio Thieme & Víctor Giménez & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2023. "Health vs. Wealth: A Cross-country Analysis of Managerial Effectiveness of the COVID-19," Working Papers 2023/10, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

    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. Kortelainen, Mika, 2008. "Dynamic environmental performance analysis: A Malmquist index approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 701-715, February.
    2. Van Puyenbroeck, Tom & Rogge, Nicky, 2017. "Geometric mean quantity index numbers with Benefit-of-the-Doubt weights," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(3), pages 1004-1014.
    3. Laurens CHERCHYE & Willem MOESEN & Nicky ROGGE & Tom VAN PUYENBROECK, 2009. "Constructing a knowledge economy composite indicator with imprecise data," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces09.15, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    4. Serrao, Amilcar, 2008. "Measuring Eco-efficiency of Agricultural Activity in European Countries: A Malmquist Index Analysis," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6152, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    5. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    6. Fusco, Elisa & Vidoli, Francesco & Sahoo, Biresh K., 2018. "Spatial heterogeneity in composite indicator: A methodological proposal," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-14.
    7. 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.
    8. L Cherchye & W Moesen & N Rogge & T Van Puyenbroeck & M Saisana & A Saltelli & R Liska & S Tarantola, 2008. "Creating composite indicators with DEA and robustness analysis: the case of the Technology Achievement Index," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(2), pages 239-251, February.
    9. Ana Cárcaba & Eduardo González & Juan Ventura, 2017. "Social Progress in Spanish Municipalities (2001–2011)," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(4), pages 997-1019, December.
    10. Hatefi, S.M. & Torabi, S.A., 2010. "A common weight MCDA-DEA approach to construct composite indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 114-120, November.
    11. Eduardo González & Ana Cárcaba & Juan Ventura, 2018. "Weight Constrained DEA Measurement of the Quality of Life in Spanish Municipalities in 2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 1157-1182, April.
    12. Wade D. Cook & Juan Du & Joe Zhu, 2017. "Units invariant DEA when weight restrictions are present: ecological performance of US electricity industry," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 255(1), pages 323-346, August.
    13. Cherchye, Laurens & Knox Lovell, C.A. & Moesen, Wim & Van Puyenbroeck, Tom, 2007. "One market, one number? A composite indicator assessment of EU internal market dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 749-779, April.
    14. Rogge, Nicky, 2009. "Robust benevolent evaluations of teaching performance," Working Papers 2009/21, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    15. Mohanty, Ranjan Kumar & Sahoo, Biresh K., 2017. "Examining the Eco-Macroeconomic Performance Index of India: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," Working Papers 17/202, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    16. Ströhl, Florian & Borsch, Erik & Souren, Rainer, 2018. "Integration von Gewichtsrestriktionen in das DEA-Modell nach Charnes, Cooper und Rhodes: Exemplarische Optionen und Auswirkungen," Ilmenauer Schriften zur Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, volume 3, number 32018.
    17. Kristof Witte & Nicky Rogge, 2010. "To publish or not to publish? On the aggregation and drivers of research performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(3), pages 657-680, December.
    18. Matthias Staessens & Pieter Jan Kerstens & Johan Bruneel & Laurens Cherchye, 2019. "Data Envelopment Analysis and Social Enterprises: Analysing Performance, Strategic Orientation and Mission Drift," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 325-341, October.
    19. Laurens Cherchye & Wim Moesen & Tom Van Puyenbroeck, 2004. "Legitimately Diverse, yet Comparable: On Synthesizing Social Inclusion Performance in the EU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 919-955, December.
    20. 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.

    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:spr:soinre:v:118:y:2014:i:1:p:45-56. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.