"Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space"

Originally posted on September 2, 2009

This article by David Weil, Vernon Henderson, and Adam Storeygard is the first to introduce the idea of using satellite light data at a proxy for GDP in countries where such data is poorly gathered, and where it might not be available at all for regions within the country.

They introduce the measure, compare it to some traditional measures and proxies for GDP, and explore the data in a practical application, whether growth in agricultural regions near a city helps the city itself grow.

Overall, this is a really cool idea that has spurred plenty of research and application. For folks working in national statistics from countries with poor data, or where the data on some locations is pretty patchy, it might be worth thinking about whether it makes sense to team up with a researcher to use this as an alternative.