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- Title
Remotely too equal: Popular DMSP night‐time lights data understate spatial inequality.
- Authors
Zhang, Xiaoxuan; Gibson, John; Deng, Xiangzheng
- Abstract
Regional science and economics studies increasingly use the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) night‐time lights data to measure spatial inequality. These DMSP data are a poor proxy in this context because of their spatially mean‐reverting errors, which yield significantly lower inequality estimates than what subnational GDP data show. Inequality estimates from DMSP are also lower than what newer, research‐focused and more accurate satellites show. We demonstrate this bias using county‐level data from China and the United States. The errors in the DMSP data distort estimates of both the level of and trend in spatial inequality.
- Subjects
CHINA; METEOROLOGICAL satellites; CHINA-United States relations; REGIONAL economics
- Publication
Regional Science Policy & Practice, 2023, Vol 15, Issue 9, p2106
- ISSN
1757-7802
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/rsp3.12716