Changes in Qol in Spanish Municipalities (2001-2011)

We use a list of 16 social indicators covering 8 QoL domains in 400 Spanish municipalities in 2011 to compute a composite indicator, using constrained Data Envelopment Analysis. These dimensions cover all the relevant aspects of QoL: living conditions, housing, education, health, safety, personal activities, leisure, environment. The computation of the Malmquist index using also data from 2001 allows to track the changes produced during this 10 years period. The Malmquist index is decomposed into a catching up effect and a joint development component. This allows interpreting the global evolution in terms of QoL for these municipalities and also to assess which ones have moved towards the frontier (catching up). The results show that the Mediterranear area has been the most affected by negative catching up, while the central-northern regions are still dominating the QoL frontier. The Southern regions show poor QoL scores, but no significantly negative catching up is observed. Overall there has been advancement in QoL conditions as represented by frontier shifts.