Regional welfare assessment model’ categories significance evaluation by the hierarchies analyzing method

The current work is devoted to the application of the hierarchy’s analysis method developed by Thomas Laurie Saaty to the issue of determining the priority components of the region's well-being for a person and numerically assessing their significance in order to derive an integral index of well-being. The article substantiates the problem of establishing numerical values for categories of well-being assessment emergence, as well as indicates the advantages of using the Saaty’s method to solve it. A set of evaluation categories for the regional well-being assessing model is described. The basic principles of the questionnaire formation, its distribution and filling are outlined. A questionnaire is developed, the respondents’ answers given in accordance to the pairwise comparisons interpretation scale are collected and processed. As a result of the work, the weighting coefficients for particular categories of regional well-being assessing are calculated. Special attention is paid to the issue of the obtained estimates consistency determining, for which additional calculations are carried out. Based on the work results, the conclusion about the key importance of indicators of living standards (incomes and their growth rates), health care and education for an individual to choose a place of residence among many other components of well-being was made. Numerical estimates of the weight of each specific component of well-being in the integral index are given for further development of a model and methodology for a comprehensive assessment of the regional well-being based on regularly obtained systematized data from the Russian Federation state statistics service.