The DOI matches its Crossref record; 23 of the 23 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space
Open accessAbstract
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)
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“A number of recent papers have argued that nighttime light intensity measured by weather satellites is a good proxy for GDP.”
From Economic reforms and industrial policy in a panel of Chinese cities (2016) · cites this paper as Henderson et al. (2012)
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Cites
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Grill, G., Lehner, B., Thieme, M., Geenen, B., Tickner, D., Antonelli, F., Babu, S., Borrelli, P., Cheng, L., Crochetiere, H., et al. (2019) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1111-9 · Cited by 2,473
Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach
Mullainathan, S., & Spiess, J. (2017) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.31.2.87 · Cited by 1,989
Combining satellite imagery and machine learning to predict poverty
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Does flattening government improve economic performance? Evidence from China
Li, P., Lu, Y., & Wang, J. (2016) · Journal of Development Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.07.002 · Cited by 1,431
Human Capital and Regional Development *
Gennaioli, N., La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., & Shleifer, A. (2013) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjs050 · Cited by 1,082
Metadata
- Authors
- Henderson, J. V., Storeygard, A., & Weil, D. N.
- Affiliations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2012-04-01
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 994-1028
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4108272
- OpenAlex
- W3125333792
- Cited by
- 2,596
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 268 · 2025: 246 · 2024: 225 · 2023: 252 · 2022: 295 · 2021: 262 · 2020: 216 · 2019: 222 · 2018: 161 · 2017: 114 · 2016: 102 · 2015: 89 · 2014: 71 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 56.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD041020, T32HD007338)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Impact of Light on Environment and Health
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Development
- Keywords
- economic growth measurement, nighttime lights, satellite data, GDP growth, income growth, national accounts, measurement error, regional economic growth, sub-Saharan Africa, malaria, primate city, coastal areas
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