Chainwise paired comparisons

The pairwise comparison technique is a building block of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, which has been popularly used for multicriteria decision analysis. This paper develops a shortcut technique in which only n paired comparisons forming a closed chain are needed for n decision elements. Together with the development of a simple and intuitive measure of (in)consistency, this technique derives the relative weights of decision elements via easy step-by-step calculations on a spreadsheet format. Its performance has been tested on Saaty’s wealth of nations example. It is important to notice that ranking and weights yielded from this alternative technique are identical to Harker’s incomplete pairwise comparison solution for the same chain orientation for the example tested.