Accounting and Statistical Analyses for Sustainable Development: Multiple Perspectives and Information-Theoretic Complexity Reduction

Preface
Foreword
Acknowledgement
Table of contents
List of abbreviations
List of figures
List of tables
List of equations
List of symbols
Chapter 1
Introduction
	1.1 Background and motivation
	1.2 Research question and aim of the dissertation
	1.3 Procedure
Chapter 2 Conceptual framework of sustainable development
	2.1 Definition of sustainable development and sustainability
	2.2 The three contentual domains of sustainable development
		2.2.1 Environmental protection
		2.2.2 Social development
		2.2.3 Economic prosperity
		2.2.4 Integration of the three contentual domains
	2.3 Stakeholders and change agents of sustainable development
		2.3.1 The multilevel perspective
		2.3.2 Corporate sustainability
		2.3.3 Political goal setting: The United Nations’s (UN) Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs)
		2.3.4 Sustainability science
	2.4 Summary
Chapter 3 Measuring and assessing contributions to sustainable
development
	3.1 Principles of sustainable development measurement and assessment methods
	3.2 Overview of quantitative sustainable development
assessment methods
	3.3 Sustainable development indicators
		3.3.1 Corporate indicator frameworks
		3.3.2 Meso-level indices
		3.3.3 Macro-level indices
	3.4 Summary
Chapter 4
Methodology
	4.1 Overview of sustainable development indices’ calculation steps and methodological requirements
	4.2 Methodological evaluation of sustainable development
indices
	4.3 Methodology of the Multilevel Sustainable Development
Index (MLSDI)
		4.3.1 Collection of sustainable development key figures
		4.3.2 Preparation of sustainable development key figures
			4.3.2.1 Meso-level transformation to macro-economic categories
			4.3.2.2 Macro-level transformation of statistical classifications
		4.3.3 Imputation of missing values
			4.3.3.1 Characterisation of missing values
			4.3.3.2 Single time series imputation: Various methods depending on the
missing data pattern
			4.3.3.3 Multiple panel data imputation: Amelia II algorithm
			4.3.3.4 Statistical tests of model assumptions
		4.3.4 Standardisation to sustainable development key indicators
		4.3.5 Outlier detection and treatment
			4.3.5.1 Characterisation of outliers
			4.3.5.2 Univariate Interquartile Range (IQR) method
		4.3.6 Scaling
			4.3.6.1 Characterisation of scales
			4.3.6.2 Rescaling between ten and 100
		4.3.7 Weighting
			4.3.7.1 Overview of weighting methods
			4.3.7.2 Multivariate statistical analysis: Principal Component Analysis
(PCA)
			4.3.7.3 Multivariate statistical analysis: Partial Triadic Analysis (PTA)
			4.3.7.4 Information theory: Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy
Backward (MRMRB) algorithm
			4.3.7.5 Statistical tests of model assumptions
		4.3.8 Aggregation
		4.3.9 Sensitivity analyses
	4.4 Summary and interim conclusion
Chapter 5
Empirical findings
	5.1 Data base, objects of investigation, and time
periods
	5.2 Sustainable development key figures
		5.2.1 Collection and preparation of sustainable development
key figures
		5.2.2 Imputation of missing values
	5.3 Sustainable development key indicators
		5.3.1 Alignment of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and
the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) disclosures
			5.3.1.1 Environmental sustainable development key indicators
			5.3.1.2 Social sustainable development key indicators
			5.3.1.3 Economic sustainable development key indicators
		5.3.2 Summary statistics of the sustainable development
growth indicators
		5.3.3 Outlier detection and treatment
		5.3.4 Empirical findings of the cleaned and rescaled sustainable
development key indicators
			5.3.4.1 Summary statistics
			5.3.4.2 Comparative analysis of the selected branches
	5.4 Weighting
		5.4.1 The Principal Component (PC) family’s eigenvalues and
explained cumulative variances
		5.4.2 The Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy Backward (MRMRB) algorithm’s discretisation and backward
elimination
		5.4.3 Comparative analysis of weights
		5.4.4 Statistical tests of the Principal Component (PC) family
	5.5 Empirical findings of the four composite sustainable development measures
		5.5.1 Summary statistics
		5.5.2 Comparative analysis of the selected branches
	5.6 Sensitivity analyses
	5.7 Summary
Chapter 6 Discussion and conclusion
	6.1 Implications for research
	6.2 Implications for practice
	6.3 Limitations and future outlook
	6.4 Summary and conclusion
Appendix
	A.1 Statistical classification scheme of economic
activities in the European Union (EU)
	A.2 German health economy’s statistical delimitation
	A.3 Statistical tests of sustainable development key
figures
	A.4 Summary statistics of the sustainable development
key indicators
	A.5 Outlier thresholds of the sustainable development
key indicators
	A.6 Normality tests of z-score scaled sustainable
development key indicators
	A.7 Sensitivities by the four composite sustainable development measures
References