Is newer better? Evaluating the suitability of nighttime luminosity in proxying poverty in Africa

African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, 2022, vol. 14, issue 1, 150-167

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of the study is to evaluate whether nighttime luminosity sourced from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System satellite sensors is a suitable proxy for measuring poverty in Africa. Design/methodology/approach - Our study performs wavelet coherence analysis to investigate the time-frequency synchronization between the nightlight data and “income-to-wealth” ratio for 39 African countries between 1992 and 2012. Findings - All-in-all, the authors find that approximately a third of African countries produce positive synchronizations between nighttime data and “income-to-wealth” ratio and hence conclude that most African countries are not at liberty to use nighttime data to proxy conventional poverty statistics. Originality/value - In differing from previous studies, the authors examine the suitability of nightlight intensity as a proxy of poverty for individual African countries using much more rigorous analysis.

Keywords: Africa; Complex wavelets; DMSP-OLS nighttime; Morlet wavelets; Poverty and inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ajemsp:ajems-02-2022-0042

DOI: 10.1108/AJEMS-02-2022-0042

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