2009 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 203-218
The first purpose of this article is to introduce the method of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) proposed by C. Ragin. This article especially focuses on the method of fuzzy-set truth-table approach and introduces it using a virtual data.
The second purpose is to propose a way of application of fsQCA to reconstruction of an index constructed by several sub-indices. An example is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is a national level index of well-being published by UNDP every year. We try to reconstruct HDI by fsQCA in order to reflect people's subjective evaluation such as subjective well-being and evaluation of freedom of choice. First, we construct fuzzy-set truth tables with sub-indices of HDI as conditions and subjective evaluation indices as an outcome using the dataset from Human Development Report and the World Values Surveys. Then, we propose two ways of reconstruction of HDI for reflecting a subjective evaluation index. One way is to use membership score of a sufficient condition equation derived from the truth table by fsQCA. Another way is to create a complex index factoring in sufficiency and necessity (consistency and coverage) of each combination of conditions to the outcome. The performances of each reconstructed index are discussed at the end of the article.
