ABSTRACT
The impossibility of direct measurement of some economic features in the metric scale prompted researchers to use specific mathematical and statistical apparatus in their evaluation, in particular the combination of expert scores with models and methods of fuzzy logic. Such latent features at the micro-level include financial condition, competitiveness, investment attractiveness, the global criterion of optimality, priority of the company’s investment projects, etc. The concepts and essence of latent economic signs are discussed, their definition and connection with scales of measurement of indicators of commodity producers are given, and also the four-level hierarchical model of latent sign “competitiveness” of the company is investigated. The methods of estimation of latent economic signs existing in modern science are considered and their classification is offered. In the example of the sign of “competitiveness” of the company, methods of estimating latent indicators based on a combination of expert opinions and algorithms of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic are considered. The method of determining the weights of the symptom factors of the desired latent economic indicator based on their pairwise comparison is discussed (Saaty process).
