Measuring and ranking of economic, environmental and social efficiency of countries

TLDR: In this article, the authors measure and rank nation-states' governance effectiveness and quality on a quantifying scientific basis, by means of data envelopment analysis, by adding the equality in income distribution as an output.

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure and rank nation‐states' governance effectiveness and quality on a quantifying scientific basis, by means of data envelopment analysis.Design/methodology/approach – The principles are first analyzed from a theoretical and normative standpoint, linking to earlier literature. One dimension of the approach is adding the equality in income distribution as an output. Another dimension boils down to environmental performance.Findings – The addition of the Gini index affects the ranking of the developing countries in a more significant manner. Similar results are obtained when the authors add the environmental performance as an input. Another interesting result suggests that conventional ranking methods (i.e gross domestic product per capita or human development index) could be used for representing the country's efficiency only for developed countries.Research limitations/implications – Future research may be aimed at applying the developed methodology to more co...