Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5559/di.20.2.03
THE APPLICATION OF MULTIPLE CRITERIA ASSESSMENT OF PRODUCTION SECTORS ON INCREASING QUALITY OF LIFE
Renata SLABE ERKER
; Institute for Economic Research, Ljubljana
Vlado LAVRAČ
; Institute for Economic Research, Ljubljana
Abstract
The pitfalls of distorted consumption patterns are increasingly
clear in modern society. They are seen in the vicious circle of
rushed work, earning and spending, which does not generally
provide people with greater life satisfaction. As much research
has indicated, a 'happiness paradox' occurs. In developed countries,
at least, people are not becoming happier, although their
material wealth or living standard has continually increased over
time. This indicates that other non-material elements of well-being
are at least as important as material elements for satisfaction
with life. This suggests that a paradigm for social development
must be directed away from increasing one-sided economic
development at any cost towards sustainable development, if not
to maximising the overall happiness in a society. This paper
brings an innovative attempt to provide some guidance as to the
question which changes in the production structure, beside
changes in consumption pattern, could contribute more to higher
quality of life. It uses an established method – multi-criteria
decision analysis (MCDA) – to combine academic theoretical and
empirical work on happiness with the policy goal of increasing
quality of life and promoting sustainable development. The use
of multiple criteria assessment ranks production sectors on the
basis of their contribution to the individual and overall quality of
life criteria. The paper addresses the case of Slovenia, though the
method is equally applicable in principle to other countries.
Keywords
life satisfaction; quality of life; production sectors; ranking; multiple criteria decision analysis
Hrčak ID:
69560
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2011.
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