Multicriteria rankings of open-end investment funds and their stability

For research purposes, three multicriteria outranking methods (PROMETHEE, WSA and TOPSIS) were used to construct rankings of investment funds to assess their performance in the time period from January to July 2008. Nine indicators related to the distributions of return rates, purchase and management costs and to customers’ convenience were included in the set of criteria. The weight of each criterion was calculated on the basis of the relative volatility rate of the given criterion. In order to assess the stability of the rankings, the weight of a single criterion was changed (using each criterion in turn) and new rankings were constructed using the modified weights. The similarity of rankings built before and after these changes was assessed on the basis of the maximum difference between ranks and the Spearman correlation coefficient. The results obtained enable assessment not only of the stability of each outranking method, but the similarity of results obtained by different methods as well. All calculations were done using the SANNA software.investment funds, outranking methods, PROMETHEE method, WSA method, TOPSIS method, stability of rankings

Comparison of Healthcare Performance and its Determinants in European Countries Using the TOPSIS Approach

The paper provides a comparison of European countries with respect to their healthcare. Two dimensions were taken into account. The first set of criteria contains the resources provided by the healthcare sector to the inhabitants, such as the number of practising physicians and the number of hospital beds per one hundred thousand inhabitants, and the resources provided to the sector by financing entities, such as health care expenditures. The second dimension reflects the output sphere which results from the quality of healthcare system performance; this set of criteria includes life expectancy, the share of people with good or very good perceived health, and the infant mortality rate. Countries were ranked using the TOPSIS method. Results reveal that resources are crucial to the assessment

Efektywność produkcji rolnej w regionach FADN w latach 1996-2011

This paper examines the efficiency of agricultural production in the European Union and traces changes in the specialization of EU regions in terms of agricultural production using a territorial division based on the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The studied period is from 1996 to 2011. The basic tool of quantitative analysis is the Data Envelopment Analysis method for testing the relative efficiency of objects. It is assumed that FADN regions are Decision Making Units as (DMUs) as defined by the DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) method. The specialization of a region is defined in terms of agricultural production and changes in specialization and the technological efficiency of production in the studied period are examined. Special attention is paid to FADN regions specializing in livestock production and a detailed classification of these regions by production efficiency is offered. It is examined how production efficiency changed in regions focusing on livestock production and whether or not these changes were influenced by the efficiency of agricultural production in neighboring regions. The study showed that there were no distinct patterns in the efficiency of FADN regions and no clear relationship between the efficiency of a specific region and the efficiency and specialization of neighboring regions.W opracowaniu jest badana zmienność specjalizacji i efektywności produkcji rolnej w Unii Europejskiej w podziale terytorialnym na regiony Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Okres analizy stanowią lata 1996-2011 będące czasem rozszerzania Unii o nowe kraje członkowskie. Źródłem danych są bazy FADN. Podstawowym narzędziem analizy ilościowej są metody badania względnej efektywności obiektów z rodziny modeli Data Envelopment Analysis. Przyjęto definicje specjalizacji regionu w produkcji rolnej. Zbadano zmiany w specjalizacji i efektywności technologicznej produkcji w wyróżnionym okresie. Szczególną uwagę poświęcono regionom FADN specjalizującym się w produkcji zwierzęcej. Dokonano szczegółowej klasyfikacji tych regionów ze względu na rodzaj efektywności produkcji. Zbadano jak zmieniała się efektywność produkcji w regionach produkcji zwierzęcej i czy na zmiany tej efektywności miały wpływ specjalizacja i zmiany efektywności produkcji rolnej w regionach FADN sąsiadującymi bezpośrednio z regionami produkcji zwierzęcej. Z przeprowadzonego badania wynika, że efektywność na poziomie regionów FADN nie charakteryzowała się wyraźnymi prawidłowościami ani nie występował jednoznaczny związek między efektywnością jednego, wyróżnionego regionu a efektywnością i specjalizacją regionów sąsiednich

Stability of hospital rankings

Many hospital rankings are based on algorithms and weights elicited by experts. The paper attempts to build rankings of Polish district hospitals using the TOPSIS method and to examine the sensitivity of the results to the changes in weights. We considered 11 large and 34 medium-sized hospitals. The criteria set consists of man-days total, profit/loss on sales, contract with the National Health Fund, return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). Because of this, rankings consider different spheres in which hospitals perform, including the financial aspect and their main goal, i.e., treating patients. The results show that despite the overall high similarity of rankings, the benchmarking based on rankings should be done with care as the positions of some individual hospitals changed to a great degree

Multicriteria Rankings of Open-end Investment Funds and their Stability

For research purposes, three multicriteria outranking methods (PROMETHEE, WSA and TOPSIS) were used to construct rankings of investment funds to assess their performance in the time period from January to July 2008. Nine indicators related to the distributions of return rates, purchase and management costs and to customers’ convenience were included in the set of criteria. The weight of each criterion was calculated on the basis of the relative volatility rate of the given criterion. In order to assess the stability of the rankings, the weight of a single criterion was changed (using each criterion in turn) and new rankings were constructed using the modified weights. The similarity of rankings built before and after these changes was assessed on the basis of the maximum difference between ranks and the Spearman correlation coefficient. The results obtained enable assessment not only of the stability of each outranking method, but the similarity of results obtained by different methods as well. All calculations were done using the SANNA software. (original abstract

The Impact of Weights on the Quality of Agricultural Producers' Multicriteria Decision Models

Decisions regarding agricultural production involve multiple goals. A multicriteria approach allows decision makers to consider more aspects of the decision scenario, although it also leads to other problems, such as difficulties with the selection of goals or criteria, as well as assigning them appropriate weights. It is argued that not only do goals vary depending on the decision-makers' socioeconomic features, but their relative importance changes as well. A simulation study has been conducted based on the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) database. We use the distance-to-the-negative-solution maximization model. Seven sets of criteria and different sets of weights are considered. The main purpose of the study is to determine the impact of weights on the quality of the model. Quality is assessed by comparing the optimal and observed values of the decision variables. The results lead to the conclusion that the differences between the quality of various models are small. (original abstract

Healthcare expenditure and the course COVID-19 epidemic in Polish voivodeships in the period march 4 – may 31, 2019

Celem artykułu jest zbadanie różnic i podobieństw między województwami w rozwoju epidemii COVID-19 w okresie od 4 marca do 31 maja 2020 r. w kontekście finansowania ochrony zdrowia w 2018 r. W analizie przebiegu epidemii wykorzystano dwa podejścia. Uzyskane wyniki wskazują na istniejące między województwami podobieństwa. W przypadku badania podobieństw województw na podstawie wartości przyjmowanych przez zmienne opisujące rozwój epidemii każdego dnia analizowanego okresu znacząca dla finalnej klasyfikacji okazała się zmienna opisująca liczbę zgonów na 10 tys. osób. Dla alternatywnego podejścia, uwzględniającego dynamikę epidemii, decydującą rolę wydają się mieć wykryte przypadki. Podobieństwa grupowań ze względu na finansowanie oraz przebieg epidemii nie są duże, relatywnie najmniejsze różnice występują w przypadku klasyfikacji uwzględniającej zgony.The goal of the paper is to examine the differences and similarities between Polish voivodships in the field the development of the COVID-19 epidemic in the period from March 4 to May 31, 2020. Healthcare financing in 2018 was taken into account. Two approaches were used to study the development of the epidemic. Results indicate similarities between voivodships. For analysis based on the values of variables describing the epidemic development on each day of the studied period, the number of deaths per 10 thousand people turned out to be important for the final classification. In the alternative approach, dynamics was taken into account. The number of cases per 10 thousand people was a decisive factor in the classification. The similarities of groupings in terms of financing and the course of the epidemic are not large, the relatively smallest differences occur in the case of the classification taking into account deaths

Changes in the Relative Situation of District Hospitals in Poland after the Introduction of a System of Basic Hospital Service Provision in 2017

The most recent big reform of the Polish health system took place in 2017 and introduced a basic hospital service provision system. Hospitals were able to be included in the network and receive flat-rate financing from the National Health Fund. The current paper aims to assess how the relative situation of hospitals changed between 2015 and 2018. This study is based on multicriteria rankings which take into account the values of profit/loss on sales, the contract with the NHF, the income from health services outside the NHF, the income from rental and lease, the employment of doctors, the employment of nurses, liabilities, operating costs, and interns and residents per hospital bed. The similarity of rankings constructed using different methods is shown. Based on the results of the Chi-squared test, it can be concluded that the inclusion in the network does not affect whether the relative situation of a hospital between 2015 and 2018 improved or not. In the regression analysis, the dummy variable for level 1 hospital was negatively related to the median rank; however, this impact was not statistically significant. (original abstract

Production function for modeling hospital activities. The case of Polish county hospitals.

The aim of the article is to present the use of production function as a source of knowledge for managers of county hospitals to make rational decisions so as to achieve economic efficiency, including naturally the financial efficiency. The healthcare sector in each country differs from other sectors of the economy. The economically effective operation of county hospitals in Poland is very difficult due to all their determinants. Therefore, all economic analyses should be used to help hospital managers achieve this goal, and production function remains underestimated as a source of knowledge. The Cobb-Douglas and translog production functions were used as sources of knowledge for decision-making by county hospitals. Total number of patient-days was a dependent variable; and the total number of beds, the number of doctors and nurses (in full time equivalents, FTEs) and costs (of materials, electricity, services) were a set of explanatory variables. The significance of explanatory variables most often appeared in models accounting for the workload of nurses. On the other hand, the greatest fit measured with the residual standard error was characterised by models accounting for the number of beds. For each type of production function, the diversified results obtained show the properties of production function. This kind of knowledge is not provided by analyses which are not based on production functions