Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/198771 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7411
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime lights fail to capture the true brightness of most cities. We show that night lights are a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and empirical evidence which both suggest that these ‘top lights’ follow a Pareto distribution. We then propose a simple correction procedure which recovers the full distribution of city lights. Applying this approach to cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we find that primate cities are outgrowing secondary cities but are changing from within.
Subjects: 
development
urban growth
night lights
top-coding
inequality
JEL: 
O10
O18
R11
R12
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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