Educationalists are well able to find fault with rankings on numerous grounds and may reject them outright. However, given that they are here to stay, we could also try to improve them wherever possible. All currently published university rankings combine various measures to produce an overall...

We highlight differences in the way multiplicative DEA is being applied and draw attention to the fact that a units-invariant (i.e. scale-invariant) form is available. Moreover, this model avoids the ‘zero weight problem' in DEA (where criteria are effectively ignored)

The World Happiness Report is published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and contains an international ranking of national average happiness, as measured by surveys of personal life evaluations. It also contains an analysis which tries to explain the happiness...

An obvious measure of efficiency or productivity is the ratio of output to input. When there are multiple outputs and/or inputs one approach is to take weighted combinations before calculating the ratio. How should these weights be chosen? In comparing the efficiency of organizational units data...

Simple additive weighting is a well-known method for scoring and ranking alternative options based on multiple attributes. However, the pitfalls associated with this approach are not widely appreciated. For example, the apparently innocuous step of normalizing the various attribute data in order...

Consider a set of decision-making units (DMUs, e.g. branches, departments, firms) which employ a variety of resources to produce multiple outputs. The units being compared may be in the public sector e.g. health or education, so that the outputs and inputs need not be measured in monetary terms....