Selection of income indicators for Middle East country classification

Laplacian score used to select the most relevant income (input) indicators for Middle East countries, has shown good classification performances of those countries, while reducing their input indicator space. In this paper, we propose a new way to calculate the similarity matrix used by this Laplacian score in order to perform the selection. This similarity matrix is calculated using selected outcome (output) indicators. Based on this matrix, a Laplacian score is attributed to each input indicator. These indicators are then ranked according to their scores and the most discriminant ones are selected. Results show the interest of the proposed approach for indicator selection to perform classification of those Middle East countries. They also reveal that the women participation is a critical dimension of the development process of a country.