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J. H. Liou & Gwo-Hshiung Tzeng (2012) Comments on “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview”, Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 18:4, 672-695, DOI: 10.3846/20294913.2012.753489

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COMMENTS ON “MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION MAKING (MCDM) METHODS IN ECONOMICS: AN OVERVIEW”

James J.H. Liou1, Gwo-Hshiung Tzeng2,3

Abstract. This paper offers some comments on a previously published paper entitled “Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods in economics: an overview” by Zavadskas and Turskis (2011). The authors of that work did make great efforts to summarize MCDM methods, but we feel that they ignored some important new concepts and trends in the MCDM field for solving real-world problems. First, the traditional model assumes that the criteria are independent and hierarchical in structure; however, in real-world problems, the relationships between the criteria or dimensions are usually interdependent and sometimes even exert feedback effects. Second, the relative good solution from the existing alternatives is replaced by the aspiration levels to fit today’s competitive markets. Third, the trends have shifted from how to carry out the “ranking” or “selection” of the most preferable alternatives, to how to “improve” their performances. Fourth, information fusion/aggregation such as fuzzy integrals, basically, a non-additive/super-additive model, has been developed to aggregate the performances. Finally, the original fixed resource in multi-objective programming is divided, so that both decision and objective spaces are changeable. In this paper we add some new concepts and provide comments that could be seen as completing the original paper.

Keywords: MCDM (Multiple Criteria Decision Making), Interdependence, Information fusion, Non-additive, Changeable space, Economics

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