"Localities in developed countries often restrict construction and population growth through regulations governing land usage, lot sizes, building heights, and frontage requirements. In developing countries, such policies are less effective because of the existence of unregulated, informal...

GDP growth is often measured poorly for countries and rarely measured at all for cities. We propose a readily available proxy: satellite data on lights at night. Our statistical framework uses light growth to supplement existing income growth measures. The framework is applied to countries with...