The Innovation-Based Human Development Index Using PROMETHEE II: The Context of G8 Countries

Abstract

The current Human Development Index (HDI) has a promising potential to consider further dimensions, the technological dimensions in specific, in order to absorb various innovational aspects whenever human development is to be benchmarked among countries. Hence, the innovation-based HDI was developed herein using one of the well-known Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques: the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations II (PROMETHEE II) considering a mixture of technological criteria, including the Global Innovation Index (GII) itself. The G8 countries, as leading countries worldwide, were investigated in this regard in order to attain such a benchmarking attempt. The model was formulated using seven criteria selected from the World Bank (WB) Open Data (such as High-technology exports as a percentage of manufactured exports, Research and development (R&D) expenditure as a percentage of GDP, and Trademark applications, …, etc.) along with the GII, for the purpose of conducting an MCDM-based evaluation model for the G8 countries. The results of the developed index affirm that the ranking of the G8 countries has distinctly been changed as a consequence of considering technological and innovational aspects, compared to the original HDI (i.e., USA +4—from 5th to 1st; Canada −4, from 2nd to 6th). By utilizing MCDM methods (including PROMETHEE II), this paper also affirms that an infinite number of indexes can be developed in the future by employing a huge number of WB indicators with respect to various MCDM approaches. Hence, international communities are in need of setting up commonly accepted guidelines in order to facilitate having a unified prioritization (i.e., unified preference) regarding the potential criteria and/or indicators to be considered globally for better sustainable development.