부산대학교 도서관

Byline: Noelia Somarriba (1), Bernardo Pena (2) Keywords: Quality of life; Synthetic indicators; Distance measures; Data envelopment analysis; Principal components analysis Abstract: For more than three decades now, sociologists, politicians and economists have used a wide range of statistical and econometric techniques to analyse and measure the quality of life of individuals with the aim of obtaining useful instruments for social, political and economic decision making. The aim of this paper is to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of three possible methodologies for obtaining synthetic indicators for the area of welfare and quality of life. These methodologies are Principal Components Analysis, Data Envelopment Analysis and Measure of Distance P.sub.2. Furthermore this paper analyses quality of life in the European Union (EU), as a methodological exercise to demonstrate the principles of calculation, implications and differences between the three indicator-construction approaches. This analysis is particularly useful in a scene like the EU, immersed in a deep transformation process and with profound cultural, economic and social inequalities. Therefore, an analysis of the quality of life and well-being of its inhabitants can play a major role in ironing out such differences. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Applied Economics, University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain (2) Department of Economic Statistics, Economic Structure and International Economic Organization, University of Alcala, Alcala de Henares, Spain Article History: Registration Date: 20/10/2008 Received Date: 15/01/2008 Accepted Date: 19/10/2008 Online Date: 21/11/2008