21 April 2014 |
Satellites at Night Can Shed Light on Earth’s Poverty |
Mass media - News Sala i Martín |
The Wall Street Journal
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Satellites orbiting the Earth can help people forecast the weather or navigate through an unfamiliar city. They also can help economists gauge poverty rates around the world. The trick is to measure artificial light generated at night, two economists wrote in a recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “It is intuitive that nighttime lights should reflect economic activity to some degree because light is a critical input in many production processes and consumption activities (e.g. outdoor lighting, consumption activities at night in private homes or public places, transportation of goods and people, productive activity in factories and office buildings, and evening consumption of mass media),” they wrote. - Link to the whole article (blogs.wsj.com)
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