Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Henderson, J. Vernon; Storeygard, Adam; Weil, David N.
• 署名单位: Brown University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.2.994
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 994-1028
• 关键词: trade

摘要

We develop a statistical framework to use satellite data on night lights to augment official income growth measures. For countries with poor national income accounts, the optimal estimate of growth is a composite with roughly equal weights on conventionally measured growth and growth predicted from lights. Our estimates differ from official data by up to three percentage points annually. Using lights, empirical analyses of growth need no longer use countries as the unit of analysis; we can measure growth for sub- and supranational regions. We show, for example, that coastal areas in sub-Saharan Africa are growing slower than the hinterland. (JEL E01, E23, O11, 047, 057)