We build on the Maddison GDP data to assemble international time series from before 1914 on real per capita personal … consumer expenditure, C. We also improve the GDP data in many cases. The C variable comes closer than GDP to the consumption …-durables is feasible for only a minority of cases.) We have essentially full annual data on C for 22 countries and GDP for 35 …

GDP growth is often measured poorly for countries and rarely measured at all for cities or subnational regions. We … propose a readily available proxy: satellite data on lights at night. We develop a statistical framework that uses lights … accounts data, information on growth of lights is of marginal value in estimating the true growth rate of income, while for …

We show how technical change, measured as a shift in the GDP function, is combined with net income to track welfare …

(measures of nighttime lights) as a proxy for standard measures of output. The paper compares output and luminosity at the …