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Composite indices of sustainable development: an Information Theory approach

presentation
posted on 2023-06-08, 21:25 authored by Lee Stapleton, Guy Garrod
Although a principal driving force behind the formulation of composite indices of sustainable development is to try and simplify the state of the world into a few key numbers (as opposed to having to refer to an array of simple non-aggregated indicators) do they really simplify or beget complexity? By definition, composite indices of sustainable development are further removed from reality compared to simple indicators because of, for example, 1) assumptions that the functional form used to combine different indicators is correct 2) assumptions that any weights used to prioritise different indicators within a given functional form are correct. This would appear to suggest that composite indices do introduce additional complexity which is not associated with simple indicators. Information Theory has been applied to problems in many fields over the last 50 years such as electrical engineering, linguistics and psychology. More recently it has been applied within the environmental sciences to determine, for example, whether more complex models of terrestrial nutrient flux are justified compared to simpler, nested alternatives (Stapleton et al., In Press). This work seeks to address whether and how Information Theory can be used to assess if the complexity of composite indices is justified, using the UN Development Programme's Human Development Index as an illustrative example.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Presentation Type

  • speech

Event name

3rd International Conference on Sustainability

Event location

Chennai, India

Event type

conference

Event date

4-7 January 2007

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-07-06

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