Complexity in Society: From Indicators Construction to their Synthesis

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Conceptual Issues

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Complexity: Between Rhetoric and Science

      • Alberto Peruzzi

      Pages 3-50

   3. Building Knowledge. Between Measure and Meaning: A Phenomenological Approach

      • Rocco Sacconaghi

      Pages 51-68

3. Methodological Issues

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 69-69

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   2. Socio-economic Statistics for a Complex World: Perspectives and Challenges in the Big Data Era

      • Marco Fattore

      Pages 71-86

   3. Developing Indicators and Managing the Complexity

      • Filomena Maggino

      Pages 87-114

   4. Dealing with Syntheses in a System of Indicators

      • Filomena Maggino

      Pages 115-137

   5. Scalability of Composite Indices: Complexity Complications and Findings from 15 Years of Monitoring Child and Youth Well-Being in the United States

      • Kenneth C. Land, Vicki L. Lamb, Xiaolu Zang

      Pages 139-156

4. Technical Issues

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 157-157

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   2. Synthesis of Indicators: The Composite Indicators Approach

      • Matteo Mazziotta, Adriano Pareto

      Pages 159-191

   3. Synthesis of Indicators: The Non-aggregative Approach

      • Marco Fattore

      Pages 193-212

   4. The Role of Extended IRT Models for Composite Indicators Construction

      • Michela Gnaldi, Simone Del Sarto, Filomena Maggino

      Pages 213-227

5. Particular Experiences

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 229-229

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   2. Synthesis of Indicators Through Weighting: The Experiences of Quality of Life Measures

      • Chang-ming Hsieh

      Pages 231-249

   3. The Role of Normalisation in Building Composite Indicators. Rationale and Consequences of Different Strategies, Applied to Social Inclusion

      • Ludovico Carrino

      Pages 251-289

   4. Evaluation of Life Satisfaction in Italy: Proposal of a Synthetic Measure Based on Poset Theory

      • Giovanna Boccuzzo, Giulio Caperna

      Pages 291-321

   5. Joint Analysis of Structural Models and Performance: Merging Clustering and Composite Indicators in the Analysis of Europe 2020 Strategy

      • Tommaso Rondinella, Elena Grimaccia

      Pages 323-332

This volume discusses the many recent significant developments, and identifies important problems, in the field of social indicators. In the last ten years the methodology of multivariate analysis and synthetic indicators construction significantly developed. In particular, starting from the classical theory of composite indicators many interesting approaches have been developed to overcome the weaknesses of composites. This volume focuses on these recent developments in synthesizing indicators, and more generally, in quantifying complex phenomena.

• Developing indicators and managing the complexity
• From Indicators to their Synthesis
• Knowledge needs in a complex and dynamic world
• Scalability of Composite Indices
• communication of synthetic indicators in socio-economics
• the composite indicators approach

• Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy

  Filomena Maggino

Professor of Social Statistics and Multivariate Statistical Analysis at the University of Florence. Coordinator of the International II level master “QoLexityMeasuring, Monitoring and Analysis of Quality of Life and its Complexity” (University of Florence). Her main research interests concern: (i) data production (in particular, subjective data assessment), (ii) data analysis (in particular, multivariate and dimensional analysis, scaling models and construction of composite and synthetic indicators), and (iii) data presentation and dissemination (with particular reference to defining a model aimed at assessing the quality of communication in statistics). Main field of application is quality-of life and wellbeing measurement and analysis. She is author of many publications on those topics. President of the Italian Association for Quality-of-Life Studies (AIQUAV). Past-president of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS). Component of the Global Project Research Network on Measuring the Progress (established at OECD). Component of the Scientific Committee for the Measurement of Wellbeing (Commissione scientifica per la misura del benessere) established at Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). Component of the Expert Group on Quality of life, established at Eurostat – European Commission. She cooperates with and is advisor of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) with reference to quality-of-life and wellbeing issues. She is member of several international associations, many scientific journals’ editorial board, scientific committees and session organizer/chair of numerous international conferences. Editor-in-Chief (from 01/01/2014) of Social Indicators Research journal (Springer).

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