The purpose of the paper is to identify advantages and disadvantages of variousmethods of constructing rankings. The subject of our study is important due to theinternational debate on development and welfare measurement methods and ways ofcomparing results obtained for different countries. Because GDP per capita does notallow sufficient assessment, countries are compared on the basis of many criteria andresults are usually presented in form of rankings.We discuss different outranking methods originating from multidimensionalstatistical analysis and multicriteria optimization and compare them taking intoconsideration the effect of each method and each set of criteria on the final result. Ourremarks are illustrated by rankings of development and economic performance built forEuropean Union countries.Our observations and results can be regarded also as an opinion in the discussionon the report of the International Commission onMeasurement of Economic Performanceand Social Progress chaired by J.E. Stiglitz and A. Sen.