Weighting goals in policy evaluation and budgeting

Weighting goals recognizes that not all goals are of equal importance and that indicate their relative importance may influence which alternative, combination of alternatives, or budgeting of scarce resources is best. The paper is concerned with the problems involved in (1) assigning weights or measures of relative importance to goals, (2) resolving inconsistencies in the assignment of weights, (3) considering diminishing returns in weighting goals, (4) comparing weights with and without multi-dimensionality among the goals, (5) comparing weights in choosing and allocation problems, (6) relating weights to the spread on the measurement units, (7) averaging weights, and (8) providing an illustrative example by way of the problem of weighting the criteria in determining the comparable worth of different government jobs.