Applying non-compensatory multicriteria methods to build Better Life Index countries ranking

The Better Life Index (BLI) is a respected indicator to evaluate countries’ well-being aimed for organizational, governmental or even personal decisions. Nevertheless, it does not provide a final aggregation of its data, the user is required to use a method to create a ranking of the countries. The goal of this study is to contribute to cover this lack by applying non-compensatory Multicriteria Decision Aid (MCDA) methods, which is suitable for problems with multiple and complex variables that are difficult to compare, such as the BLI, in addition to removing the compensatory effects of final aggregation, thus covering one of the main criticisms to composite indicators. For this purpose, non-compensatory MCDA methods PROMETHEE II and De Borda were applied to BLI data to generate country rankings. This study offers a ranking of countries' well-being without the compensatory effect, providing a non-biased metric that is relevant due to the importance of the data, as they are used for decision-making and policy-making.