The comparison of the investment climate of provinces by multi-criteria decision making methods: A study in Turkey

Today, one of the most important means of economic growth and development includes investments. Investments with the ability to create solutions for social and economic problems together are among the primary subjects of study for countries and governments thanks to this quality. Creating an investment climate that functions efficiently is of importance in terms of averting the passive capacity and in-situ activating the resources. In Turkey, due to the lack of a study that guided the investors in choosing locations and the limitations of other studies conducted on this subject, this study aims to present a comparison of the investment climates of the cities through a set of specific criteria for foreign or domestic investors. Another aim of the study is to bring a study that enables the comparison of investment climate within certain periods to the portfolio of institutions/establishments that are decision-makers at politics level. The study also focuses on contributing to the comparison of ideal investment climate by using economic and social criteria, which are indispensable parts of development, and to the sustainability of investments in the pre-investment period. In the study, the investment climates of 81 provinces in Turkey were compared according to 48 criteria. In the weighting of the criteria, the Entropy method was used while the Promethee, Topsis, Vikor, and Moora multi-criteria decision-making techniques were used in the comparisons of the investment climate of provinces. The results obtained from these techniques were combined by the Copeland method and the final results were obtained. To test the correlation between the methods in question, the Spearman Rank-Order correlation test was used. It was concluded that the results of the ranks obtained by the Copeland method were more reliable in terms of the comparisons of investment climates of the provinces. Keywords: Investment, investment climate, multi-criteria decision-making, province