6533b86cfe1ef96bd12c8be0
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Measuring well-being in Colombian departments. The role of geography and demography
Jesús Peiró-palominoAndrés J. Picazo-tadeoEmili Tortosa-ausinasubject
Economics and EconometricsIndex (economics)Strategy and ManagementYield (finance)Geography Planning and DevelopmentPopulation0211 other engineering and technologiesdepartments02 engineering and technologyColombiaManagement Science and Operations Researchwell-being0502 economics and businessData envelopment analysisCivic engagement050207 economicseducationeducation.field_of_study021103 operations researchCorporate governance05 social sciencesComposite indicatorGeographyWell-beingDemographic economicsStatistics Probability and Uncertaintycomposite indicatorsdescription
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. We thank the participants at the XLV International Conference on Regional Science (2019) for helpful comments and suggestions—particularly those by Vicente Royuela—which contributed to an overall improvement of the paper. The comments from two referees have also contributed to a much improved research. We also acknowledge the financial support of the European Regional Development Fund and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (ECO2016-75237-R and ECO2017-85746-P), Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO/2018/102) and Universitat Jaume I (UJI-B2017-33).
year | journal | country | edition | language |
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2021-12-01 | Socio-Economic Planning Sciences |