Publication

This paper investigates the theory that the examination of the growth rate of night lights could be a valuable tool for determining economic activity at the subnational level when GDP data for an area is lacking or of poor quality. To do this, the authors assess the stability of the elasticity of GDP with regard to night lights across regions in Brazil, India, the United States, and Western Europe. They find that the relationship between regional GDP and night lights proves to be unstable, not only where regional GDP data may be unreliable but also where such data is of high quality. This suggests that night lights tend to be a poor proxy of regional economic activity.