Exploring the Spatial Economy by Night

Bergs, Rolf (2016): Exploring the Spatial Economy by Night.

Abstract

Nocturnal satellite images may offer an interesting tool to generate socio-economically relevant data and to analyse the evolution of space, e.g. cities or rural areas, and how spatial units interact over time. So far, the major purpose of using night satellite images for economic analysis has been the search for proxies for production and population density in countries with insufficient and unreliable data infrastructure. This essentially applies to less developed countries where weak data infrastructure is often part of overall underdeveloped administrative capacities. Error variance of light emission is constant over space and independent from error in official statistics. In industrialised countries official socio-economic data are deemed sufficiently reliable, a reason why night satellite analysis has been more of relevance for developing countries. However, this only holds for purposes to derive proxies for production or population data. In fact, there is also reason to use this tool in the observation of (spatial) economic patterns and trends in the more industrialised countries. Observation of spatial distribution of rural areas, urban agglomerations, border areas or other spatial categories are to be mentioned. More importantly, underlying patterns of spatial heterogeneity, such as Zipf’s law, and spatial dependence (change of spatial autocorrelation over time) can be made visible - without distortion implied by (changing) administrative boundaries. The images analysed in this paper are satellite images of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The time series of nocturnal satellite imagery and the application of adequate image analysis software, such as ImageJ (in some cases to be complemented by further statistics software), provide a useful perspective for the analysis of spatial change. This paper is an essay with preliminary ideas for discussion; the approach is explorative-methodological rather than one putting an empirical focus on a defined research item.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: nocturnal satellite images, image analysis, spatial heterogeneity, spatial dependence
• Subjects: R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

References

Anselin, Luc 2001, “Spatial Econometrics”, in: Baltagi, Badi H, A Companion to Theoretical Econometrics, Oxford: Blackwell

Auerbach, Felix 1913, „Das Gesetz der Bevölkerungskonzentration“, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, Vol. 59

Beck, Nathaniel, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Kyle Beardsley 2006, “Space is more than Geography: Using Spatial Econometrics in the Study of Political Economy”, International Studies Quarterly Vol. 50

Berra, E, S. Gibson-Poole, A. MacArthur, R. Gaulton and A. Hamilton 2015, “Estimation of the spectral sensitivity functions of un-modified and modified commercial off-the-shelf digital cameras to enable their use as a multispectral imaging system for UAVs”, The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XL-1/W4

Buntilov, Vladimir M. 2013, “Pan-Sharpening of Multispectral Imagery Using Content-Specific Orthogonal Linear Transform”, International Journal of Computer and Communication Engineering, Vol. 2/3

Chen, Xi and William D. Nordhaus 2011, “Using luminosity data as a proxy for economic statistics”, PNAS Vol. 108/21

Coulter, Rory, Maarten van Ham and Allan M Findlay 2015, “Re-thinking residential mobility: Linking lives through time and space”, Progress in Human Geography (forthcoming)

Damas, M.C., Vazgen Shekoyan, Paul Marchese, Tak Cheung 2014, Comparative Fractal Analysis of 2013 November 5 Multiple Solar Eruptions with Fokker-Planck Equation Using Solar Dynamics Observatory Digital Images, Proceedings ASEE 2014 Zone I Conference, April 3-5, 2014, University of Bridgeport

Doll, Christopher N.H. 2008, CIESIN Thematic Guide to Night-time Light Remote Sensing and its Applications, Palisades: Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University

Duranton, Gilles and Henry G. Overman 2002, Testing for Localisation Using Micro-Geographic Data, London: LSE

Gabaix, Xavier and Rustam Ibragimov 2007, Rank-1/2: A simple way to improve the OLS estimation of tail exponents, Cambridge: NBER

Ghosh, Tilottama, Rebecca L. Powell, Christopher D. Elvidge, Kimberly E. Baugh, Paul C. Sutton and Sharolyn Anderson 2010, “Shedding Light on the Global Distribution of Economic Activity”, The Open Geography Journal, 2010/3

Halleck Vega, Solmaria and J. Paul Elhorst 2014, “Modelling regional labour market dynamics in space and time”, Papers in Regional Science, Volume 93/4

Henderson, Vernon, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil 2011, “A Bright Idea for Measuring Economic Growth”, American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, Vol. 101/3

Jiang, Bin 2014, “Geospatial Analysis Requires a Different Way of Thinking: The Problem of Spatial Heterogeneity”, Geojournal, Januar 2014

Jiang, Bin, Junjun Yin, and Qingling Liu 2015, “Zipf’s Law for All the Natural Cities around the World” International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 29/3

Le Sage, James P. 1999, The Theory and Practice of Spatial Econometrics, Toledo: University of Toledo

Liu, Qingling 2014, A Case Study on the Extraction of the Natural Cities from Nightlight Image of the United States of America, Gävle: University of Gävle

Mellander, Charlotta, Kevin Stolarick, Zara Matheson and José Lobo 2013, Night-Time Light Data: A Good Proxy Measure for Economic Activity?, Toronto: Martin Prosperity Institute

Overman, Henry J. 2002, “Neighbourhood Effects in Large and Small Neighbourhoods”, Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1

Pinkovskiy, Maxim and Xavier Sala-i-Martin 2015, Lights, Camera,…Income! Estimating Poverty Using National Accounts, Survey Means, and Lights, Staff Report 669: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Pinkovskiy, Maxim L. 2013, Economic Discontinuities at Borders: Evidence from Satellite Data on Lights at Night, Cambridge: MIT

Ramajo, Julián, Miguel A., Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, María M. Salinas 2008, “Spatial heterogeneity and interregional spillovers in the European Union: Do cohesion policies encourage convergence across regions?” European Economic Review Vol. 52 551–567

Schneider, Caroline A, Wayne S Rasband and Kevin W Eliceiri 2012, “NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis”, Nature Methods Vol. 9/7

Schulze, Peter M. 1995, „Zur Messung räumlicher Autokorrelation“, Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Vol. 14

Sutton, Paul C., Christopher D. Elvidge and Tilottama Ghosh 2007, “Estimation of Gross Domestic Product at Sub-National Scales using Nighttime Satellite Imagery”, International Journal of Ecological Economics & Statistics Vol. 8/S07

Troscianko, Jolyon and Martin Stevens 2015, “Image calibration and analysis toolbox – a free software suite for objectively measuring reflectance, colour and pattern”, Methods in Ecology and Evolution 2015, 6

Ushizima, Daniela , Andrea G. C. Bianchi, Christina DeBianchi and E. Wes Bethel 2012, Material Science Image Analysis using Quant-CT in ImageJ, Berkeley: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

van Woesik, Robert, Jessica Gilner, and Anthony J Hooten 2009, Standard Operating Procedures for repeated measures of process and state variables of coral reef environments, St. Lucia: Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland

Verhoeven, Geert, Christopher Sevara, Wilfried Karel, Camillo Ressl, Michael Doneus, and Christian Briese 2013, “Undistorting the Past: New Techniques for Orthorectification of Archaeological Aerial Frame Imagery”, in: Corsi, C. et al. (eds.), Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, Cham: Springer International Publishing

West, Jennifer L. and Ian D. Cameron 2011, “Using the medical image processing package, ImageJ, for astronomy”, The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Vol 100/6

Whalley, J and S. Shanmuganathan 2013, Applications of image processing in viticulture: A review, Proceedings of the 20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Adelaide, Australia, 1–6 December 2013

Zipf, George K. 1949, Human Behaviour and the Principles of Least Effort, New York: Addison Wesley

Zwiers, Merle, Gideon Bolt, Maarten van Ham and Ronald van Kempen 2014, Neighborhood Decline and the Economic Crisis, Bonn: IZA Discussion Paper