Year-end Sale % OFF 
Abstract
Economic inequality at the local level has been shown to be an important predictor of people’s political perceptions and preferences. However, research on these questions is hampered by the fact that local inequality is difficult to measure and systematic data collections are rare, in particular in countries of the Global South. We propose a new measure of local inequality derived from nighttime light (NTL) emissions data. Our measure corresponds to the local inequality in per capita nighttime light emissions, using VIIRS-derived nighttime light emissions data and spatial population data from WorldPop. We validate our estimates using local inequality estimates from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for a sample of African countries. Our results show that nightlight-based inequality estimates correspond well to those derived from survey data, and that the relationship is not due to structural factors such as differences between urban and rural regions. We also present predictive results, where we approximate the (survey-based) level of local inequality with our nighttime light indicator. This illustrates how our approach can be used for new cases where no other data are available.
Highlights
Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 4624. https://In the social sciences, there is an increasing trend to use fine-grained data to capture political and economic mechanisms
One prominent example in this strand of research is the use of nighttime lights (NTL) data collected by satellites
The results show that the distribution of NTL-based local inequality values differs by country
Summary
Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 4624. https://In the social sciences, there is an increasing trend to use fine-grained data to capture political and economic mechanisms. For many countries of the Global South, the availability of disaggregated data is usually limited Oftentimes, these countries are unlikely to be covered by surveys, and administrative data shared for research purposes is sparse or does not exist. For this reason, social science scholars have increasingly turned to alternative sources of data, such as remote sensing. Weidmann and Schutte [6] show that nighttime light emissions correlate well with ground truth measurements of household wealth, as recorded in surveys.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
