The Importance of Variables in Composite Indices: A Contribution to the Methodology and Application to Development Indices

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15310%2F19%3A73596277" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15310/19:73596277 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-019-02125-9" target="_blank" >https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-019-02125-9</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02125-9" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11205-019-02125-9</a>

Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Importance of Variables in Composite Indices: A Contribution to the Methodology and Application to Development Indices
Original language description
The paper examines the issue of weights and importance in composite indices of development. Building a composite index involves several steps, one of them being the weighting of variables. The nominal weight assigned to a variable often differs from the degree to which the variable affects the scores of the overall index. The newly suggested notion of importance is based on the idea that an important indicator, if omitted from the index, causes large changes in countries’ results. We propose a method of measuring the importance and apply it to inequality variables in composite indices of development. The results show a low importance for most inequality variables, and for some of them, a large discrepancy between the nominal weights and the importance. We argue that the importance of variables should be considered in the process of index construction. This may imply a modification of the index when there is a large discrepancy between the nominal weights and importance and when the importance of some variables is extremely low. Whether any such modification is justified must be decided within the context of the particular index.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50403 - Social topics (Women´s and gender studies; Social issues; Family studies; Social work)

Publication year
2019
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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