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 growth to augment existing income growth measures, under...

Quality-adjusted population density (QAPD) is population divided by l and area that has been adjusted for geographic characteristics. We derive weights on these geographic characteristics from a global regression of population density at the quarter-degree level with country fixed effects. We...

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...