The Italian Regional Well-Being in a Multi-expert Non-additive Perspective

This paper designs a multidimensional index of well-being for 20 Italian regions, based on a set of 41 indicators organized in an original hierarchical structure, a decision-tree whose four main pillars are Economy, Society, Environment and Health. Our novel approach combines the objective dimension of the evaluation (a comprehensive set of statistical indicators) within a flexible non-additive aggregation model (the Choquet integral) characterized with the preferences of informed Italian stakeholders. Adopting the Choquet integral allows us to overcome the well-known limitations embedded in the linear models, by assigning a weight (capacity) to any coalitions of dimensions, and by allowing a different degree of substitutability within each decision node in the tree. The weights and the parameters for the aggregation are elicited through a computer-based nominal group technique, a method which reduces the occurrences of drastically dissenting valuations and the potential expert-selection bias. Our results show that experts' perception of synergies and redundancies is quite heterogeneous between levels and nodes in the tree. Moreover, well-being measures are much influenced by the degree of substitutability embedded in the experts' preferences. Overall, the Italian picture looks more heterogeneous when analysed through the Choquet integral, with respect to a linear model.