Tracking the development of cities in emerging economies is difficult with conventional data. This paper shows that nighttime lights can be used as a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime light intensity fail to capture the true brightness of larger cities. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and empirical evidence which both suggest that these ‘top lights’ can be characterized by a Pareto distribution or similarly heavy-tailed distributions. We then propose a correction procedure that recovers the full distribution of city lights. Our results show that the brightest cities account for nearly a third of global light output. Applying this approach to cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find that primate cities are outgrowing secondary cities. Contrary to the top-coded data, our data show that differences at the intensive margin drive the differential in relative growth rates across city types.
%0 Journal Article
%1 bluhm_krause_2022
%A Bluhm, Richard
%A Krause, Melanie
%D 2022
%J Journal of Development Economics
%K Development
%P 102880
%R https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102880
%T Top lights: Bright cities and their contribution to economic development
%U https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387822000487
%V 157
%X Tracking the development of cities in emerging economies is difficult with conventional data. This paper shows that nighttime lights can be used as a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime light intensity fail to capture the true brightness of larger cities. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and empirical evidence which both suggest that these ‘top lights’ can be characterized by a Pareto distribution or similarly heavy-tailed distributions. We then propose a correction procedure that recovers the full distribution of city lights. Our results show that the brightest cities account for nearly a third of global light output. Applying this approach to cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find that primate cities are outgrowing secondary cities. Contrary to the top-coded data, our data show that differences at the intensive margin drive the differential in relative growth rates across city types.
@article{bluhm_krause_2022,
abstract = {Tracking the development of cities in emerging economies is difficult with conventional data. This paper shows that nighttime lights can be used as a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime light intensity fail to capture the true brightness of larger cities. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and empirical evidence which both suggest that these ‘top lights’ can be characterized by a Pareto distribution or similarly heavy-tailed distributions. We then propose a correction procedure that recovers the full distribution of city lights. Our results show that the brightest cities account for nearly a third of global light output. Applying this approach to cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find that primate cities are outgrowing secondary cities. Contrary to the top-coded data, our data show that differences at the intensive margin drive the differential in relative growth rates across city types.},
added-at = {2022-08-15T11:54:32.000+0200},
author = {Bluhm, Richard and Krause, Melanie},
biburl = {https://puma.ub.uni-stuttgart.de/bibtex/26a261118ef8c581ba09e066709296461/richardbluhm},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102880},
interhash = {31f3032bb8b53754e73344ab91317c79},
intrahash = {6a261118ef8c581ba09e066709296461},
issn = {0304-3878},
journal = {Journal of Development Economics},
keywords = {Development},
pages = 102880,
timestamp = {2022-08-25T10:28:53.000+0200},
title = {Top lights: Bright cities and their contribution to economic development},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387822000487},
volume = 157,
year = 2022
}
