Assessing the quality of life in French municipalities: a multidimensional approach
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Assessing the quality of life in French municipalities: a multidimensional approach Michalis Doumpos1 · Alexis Guyot2 · Emilios Galariotis2 · Constantin Zopounidis1,2 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Quality of life and well-being is a topic of major importance for public policy making and urban planning decisions. However, these concepts entail complex multiple socio-economic aspects, and are ill-defined. Quantitative assessments of quality of life based on composite indicators have become quite popular in academic research and practice. This study presents the application of an approach that combines ideas from multiple criteria decision making and efficiency analysis to the assessment of quality of life at the municipality level. A dataset involving French municipalities in 2012 is used for the analysis based on a rich set of key performance indicators that cover different aspects of quality of life conditions for citizens. The relationship of quality of life performance with the financial strength of the municipalities is also explored. Keywords Municipalities · Quality of life · Multiple criteria decision making · Benchmarking · Financial performance
1 Introduction As public finances are becoming more constrained, local governments face increasing challenges for managing their tightening resources and providing high quality services to citizens. At the same time local governments play an increasingly important role, not only as administrative units responsible for implementing central policies at the local level, but also for creating, through their own policies, an environment for citizens that promotes sustainable development and improves wellbeing and welfare. In this context, assessing the quality of life (QoL) at the local level has attracted considerable interest in policy making and academic research, as an important part of public administration practices that extends tra-
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Michalis Doumpos [email protected]
1
School of Production Engineering and Management, Financial Engineering Laboratory, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece
2
Audencia Business School, Institute of Finance, 8 route de la Jonelière, 44312 Nantes, France
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Annals of Operations Research
ditional views that focus on the finances of local governments, their cost and productive efficiency/effectiveness. QoL is a multidimensional concept encompassing several socio-economic factors, such as economic activity/conditions, employment, safety, healthcare, education, transport, and environmental issues, among others. As noted by Morais and Camanho (2011), the concept of QoL entails subjectivity (Veenhoven 2007) and it is ill-defined, thus leading to different conceptual definitions (Costa 2015). Despite this difficulty several attempts have been made to develop analytical/quantitative indicators of QoL and well-being that go beyond traditional measures of economic growth (e.g., gross domestic product, see for instance, Fleurbaey 2009). Such indicator
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