Special issue of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences on “Indices for the Betterment of the Public”

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences: The International Journal of Public Sector Decision-Making

Special issue on Indices for the Betterment of the Public

Guest editors: 

Vincent Charles, Director of Research (Intl. Affairs), CENTRUM Católica Graduate Business School, Peru

Ali Emrouznejad, Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Michael P. Johnson, McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

Further details: please click here.

Over the years, the quest for a better society has led to the birth of a variety of composite indices of development, from the gross domestic product to the happiness index. These indices usually integrate various social, cultural, psychological, and political aspects and are considered of vital importance for evaluating a country’s level of development and for assessing the impact of policy specially in public sector. Overall, they consist of numerical measures that describe the well-being of both the individual and the society as a whole.

The Special Issue of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences encourages original research articles of high quality that provide innovative quantitative and qualitative methodologies based on optimization/non-optimization, statistical learning, econometrics, and heuristics.

Topics include but are not limited to:

•             Big Mac Index

•             Competitiveness Index

•             Corruption Perception Index

•             Country Risk Index

•             Democracy Index

•             Doing Business Index

•             GINI Index

•             Global Entrepreneurship Index

•             Global Marketing Index

•             Happiness Index

•             Human Development Index

•             Index of Economic Freedom

•              Social Progress Index, and so on

As such, the Special Issue focuses on the conceptualization and development of new indices for the betterment of the public and/or novel algorithms/approaches that integrate or refine the above indices and/or novel ways of using the existing indices to improve the public policies that serve the greater good. Moreover, this special issue is intended for articles that go beyond purely suggesting a new/modern/revised index with the economics view and conceivably validating it using real life vital data sets; hence, articles that eventually help policy-makers to not only gain an advanced understanding of the ways that would unleash greater long-term social success, but also propose strategies that would create the conditions for the betterment of the public are encouraged.

Contributions from both the academic and the practitioner communities are encouraged. Submitted articles should include a separate section on implications for public policy and, among others, the section should discuss the tie between the proposed indices and the decision strategies in view of public policy.

Important Dates

Editorial Process

Manuscripts need to be submitted via https://www.journals.elsevier.com/socio-economic-planning-sciences by choosing Article Type “Indices”. Early submission recommended, referee process starts once the paper received, accepted papers will be published individually online as they are accepted.  Submitted papers will be peer-reviewed in the same manner as any other submission to a leading international journal. The major acceptance criterion for a submission is the quality and originality of the contribution.