NIGHT LIGHTS IN ECONOMICS: SOURCES AND USES1

Night lights, as detected by satellites, are increasingly used by economists, typically as a proxy for economic activity. The growing popularity of these data reflects either the absence, or the presumed inaccuracy, of more conventional economic statistics, like national or regional GDP. Further gro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic surveys 2020-12, Vol.34 (5), p.955-980
Main Authors: Gibson, John, Olivia, Susan, Boe‐Gibson, Geua
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
density
development
DMSP
Economic activity
Economic statistics
Economists
Enumeration
Health surveys
Inappropriate use
Inappropriateness
luminosity
night lights
Popularity
Rural areas
Rural communities
Satellites
VIIRS
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Summary:Night lights, as detected by satellites, are increasingly used by economists, typically as a proxy for economic activity. The growing popularity of these data reflects either the absence, or the presumed inaccuracy, of more conventional economic statistics, like national or regional GDP. Further growth in use of night lights is likely, as they have been included in the AidData geoquery tool for providing subnational data, and in geographic data that the Demographic and Health Survey links to anonymized survey enumeration areas. Yet, this ease of obtaining night lights data may lead to inappropriate use, if users fail to recognize that most of the satellites providing these data were not designed to assist economists, and have features that may threaten validity of analyses based on these data, especially for temporal comparisons, and for small and rural areas. In this paper, we review sources of satellite data on night lights, discuss issues with these data, and survey some of their uses in economics.
ISSN:0950-0804
1467-6419
DOI:10.1111/joes.12387