A relative ranking with multidimensional indicators. Application to the Spanish banking sector

In this paper, we propose a procedure to determine an overall ranking of a group of entities when the information available on the entities consists of the values of a set of indicators, which have a multidimensional nature. The multiplicity of the data available for each indicator may represent the valuation of the indicator in different scenarios, in different periods of time, or the assessment of various agents on the value of the indicator. A multicriteria treatment allows us to maintain the multidimensional nature of each indicator in order to avoid the possibility that some relevant information may be lost, and it permits the inclusion of partial information about the importance of the indicators. The proposal consists of a recursive procedure such that, at each stage, the resolution of a multiciteria linear problem yields a set of valuation vectors for each entity and subsequently, by using a distance-based method, an overall ranking that synthesises the information given by these valuation vectors is obtained. The applicability of the proposed procedure is shown with the construction of the ranking of the main banks of the Spanish banking sector from a set of financial indicators.