Which Night Lights Data Should we Use in Economics, and Where?

Gibson, John and Olivia, Susan and Boe-Gibson, Geua (2019): Which Night Lights Data Should we Use in Economics, and Where?

Abstract

Popular DMSP night lights data are flawed by blurring, top-coding, and lack of calibration. Yet newer and better VIIRS data are rarely used in economics. We compare these two data sources for predicting Indonesian GDP at the second sub-national level. DMSP data are a bad proxy for GDP outside of cities. The city lights-GDP relationship is twice as noisy using DMSP as using VIIRS. Spatial inequality is considerably understated with DMSP data. A Pareto adjustment to correct for top-coding in DMSP data has a modest effect but still understates spatial inequality and misses key features of economic activity in Jakarta.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Night lights; inequality; GDP; DMSP; VIIRS; Indonesia
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

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