Knowledge Economy: Measures and Drivers
In the Knowledge-based Economy conceptual framework that was developed by MERIT a total of 115 individual indicators have been selected to measure the sub-dimensions of the KBE. The high number of individual indicators raises the issue of robustness of the ranking obtained by their aggregation into one composite measure. To tackle this issue a sensitivity analysis is a fundamental step of the KEI composite indicator. In particular, in building the KEI composite an innovative methodological assumption has been made, i.e. it is considered as the final composite index the frequency of all rankings obtained by means of all the simulations carried out. This allows us to deal with the criticism, often made to composite indicators that rankings are presented as they were under conditions of certainty while it is well known that this is not true in general terms. Most practitioners compute a composite indicator by a simple weighted summation mathematical model. Sometimes it is acknowledged that the ranking obtained is subject to some uncertainty, but this issue is treated as a kind of mathematical appendix for technical readers, and all policy suggestions are derived under the assumption of the linear aggregation model. Here the ranking presented is the one derived by considering the whole spectrum of uncertainty. It is important to note that this is a peculiar characteristic of the KEI composite.
The scenarios, simulations and indicators developed by the JRC team answer five main research questions:
1. Is it possible to measure the knowledge economy?
2. What are the drivers of the knowledge economy?
3. How does knowledge economy relate to other complex dimensions?
4. Is it possible to reduce the total number of individual indicators of KEI conceptual framework without loosing any relevant information?
5. Are rankings useful at all for deriving policy suggestions?
SAISANA Michaela;
MUNDA Giuseppe;
2009-01-22
OPOCE
JRC47027
978-92-79-09703-4,
1018-5593,
EUR 23486 EN,
OP LB-NA-23486-EN-C,
http://composite-indicators.jrc.ec.europa.eu/,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC47027,
10.2788/92075,
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