Overall statement or summary

In this article, the authors addressed Malmquist-DEA and Kohonen's SOM for clustering Italian regions due to their wellbeing in the 2005-2011 period. The title of the paper corresponds well with the body of the article. The aim of the study and methodology are clearly specified in the abstract. The article is designed appropriately for the study's aim and it is consistent within itself. Conclusions are connected with the aim of the study and are supported by numerical results. Tables and figures are relevant and clearly presented. Literature is relevant and up-to-date. Literature was referred in the correct way.

Strengths

1. The main advantage of this article is the incorporation of new methods (DEA and SOM) to analyze the wellbeing at the regional level.

Weaknesses

1. Authors did not specify how do they understand well-being, thus it is difficult to assess the choice of diagnostic variables.
2. The article did not discuss in a broader context composite indicators' failures and their inferiority over DEA and SOM.
3. It is not clear why authors decided to build the 35x7 map. Were other maps also tested? If so, what was the difference in the valuer of the error function (5) between the chosen one and others?
4. It is not clearly specified if authors were using only error function (5) or also other SOM's errors.
5. Authors do not specify why regions were divided into 2 groups (north and south). Which map property was used to identify those groups? Maybe the analysis could be deepened by considerating another grouping as well.

Major points

1. More detailed descriptions related to SOM are needed (why given map was chosen, what about other map errors, why authors decided to dived regions into two groups). In my humble opinion, some numerical explanations are needed here.
2. Authors could also specify what are practical implications of their work. Creating the regional policy in Italy? Funds distribution? The orientation of the sustainable development policy?
3. The article fails to discuss in deeper way possible failures of DEA and SOM.

Minor points

1. Authors could also name some other popular wellbeing measures, not only GPI and IEW and present briefly the evolution of well-being research concepts.
2. The authors could more strongly indicate the superiority of DEM and SOM over composite indicators, not focusing just on weightening and aggregation. 3.