IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2019-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing Oil and Non-Oil GDP Growth from Space: An Application to Yemen 2012-17

Author

Listed:
  • Majdi Debbich

Abstract

This paper uses an untapped source of satellite-recorded nightlights and gas flaring data to characterize the contraction of economic activity in Yemen throughout the ongoing conflict that erupted in 2015. Using estimated nightlights elasticities on a sample of 72 countries for real GDP and 28 countries for oil GDP over 6 years, I derive oil and non-oil GDP growth for Yemen. I show that real GDP contracted by a cumulative 24 percent over 2015-17 against 50 percent according to official figures. I also find that the impact of the conflict has been geographically uneven with economic activity contracting more in some governorates than in others.

Suggested Citation

  • Majdi Debbich, 2019. "Assessing Oil and Non-Oil GDP Growth from Space: An Application to Yemen 2012-17," IMF Working Papers 2019/221, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=48690
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Skoufias,Emmanuel & Strobl,Eric & Tveit,Thomas Breivik, 2017. "Natural disaster damage indices based on remotely sensed data: an application to Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8188, The World Bank.
    2. Tom Bundervoet & Laban Maiyo & Apurva Sanghi, 2015. "Bright Lights, Big Cities," World Bank Publications - Reports 22922, The World Bank Group.
    3. Gregor Pfeifer & Fabian Wahl & Martyna Marczak, 2018. "Illuminating the World Cup effect: Night lights evidence from South Africa," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 887-920, November.
    4. Thomas McGregor & Samuel Wills, 2016. "Surfing A Wave Of Economic Growth," OxCarre Working Papers 170, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. J. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2012. "Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 994-1028, April.
    6. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2016. "Newer Need Not be Better: Evaluating the Penn World Tables and the World Development Indicators Using Nighttime Lights," NBER Working Papers 22216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Zhaoxin Dai & Yunfeng Hu & Guanhua Zhao, 2017. "The Suitability of Different Nighttime Light Data for GDP Estimation at Different Spatial Scales and Regional Levels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Bundervoet,Tom & Maiyo,Laban & Sanghi,Apurva, 2015. "Bright Lights, Big Cities : measuring national and subnational economic growth in Africa from outer space, with an application to Kenya and Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7461, The World Bank.
    9. Basihos, Seda, 2016. "Nightlights as a Development Indicator: The Estimation of Gross Provincial Product (GPP) in Turkey," MPRA Paper 75553, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Sep 2016.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McSharry, Patrick & Mawejje, Joseph, 2024. "Estimating urban GDP growth using nighttime lights and machine learning techniques in data poor environments: The case of South Sudan," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Syed Abul, Basher & Jobaida, Behtarin & Salim, Rashid, 2022. "Convergence across Subnational Regions of Bangladesh – What the Night Lights Data Say?," MPRA Paper 111963, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Konno, Akio & Kato, Hironori & Takeuchi, Wataru & Kiguchi, Riku, 2021. "Global evidence on productivity effects of road infrastructure incorporating spatial spillover effects," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 167-182.
    3. World Bank, "undated". "South Asia Economic Focus, Fall 2017," World Bank Publications - Reports 28397, The World Bank Group.
    4. Jesson A. Pagaduan, 2022. "Do higher‐quality nighttime lights and net primary productivity predict subnational GDP in developing countries? Evidence from the Philippines," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 288-317, September.
    5. Stein, Merlin, 2021. "Re-evaluating RCTs with nightlights - An example from biometric smartcards in India," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 152, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    6. Abhishek Singhal & Sohini Sahu & Siddhartha Chattopadhyay & Abhijit Mukherjee & Soumendra N Bhanja, 2020. "Using night time lights to find regional inequality in India and its relationship with economic development," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-18, November.
    7. , Diego, 2017. "The Natural and Infrastructural Capital Elements of Potential Post-Electrification Wealth Creation in Kenya," SocArXiv ddnhz, Center for Open Science.
    8. Verme, Paolo & Schuettler, Kirsten, 2021. "The impact of forced displacement on host communities: A review of the empirical literature in economics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    9. Clark, Hunter & Pinkovskiy, Maxim & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 2020. "China's GDP growth may be understated," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Francis Rathinam & Sayak Khatua & Zeba Siddiqui & Manya Malik & Pallavi Duggal & Samantha Watson & Xavier Vollenweider, 2021. "Using big data for evaluating development outcomes: A systematic map," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), September.
    11. Qian Chen & Tingting Ye & Naizhuo Zhao & Mingjun Ding & Zutao Ouyang & Peng Jia & Wenze Yue & Xuchao Yang, 2021. "Mapping China’s regional economic activity by integrating points-of-interest and remote sensing data with random forest," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(7), pages 1876-1894, September.
    12. Russ, Jason, 2020. "Water runoff and economic activity: The impact of water supply shocks on growth," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    13. Adhvaryu, Achyuta & Fenske, James & Khanna, Gaurav & Nyshadham, Anant, 2021. "Resources, conflict, and economic development in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    14. Daniel D. Bonneau & Joshua C. Hall & Yang Zhou, 2022. "Institutional implant and economic stagnation: a counterfactual study of Somalia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 483-503, March.
    15. Valentin Lindlacher & Gustav Pirich, 2024. "The Impact of China’s “Stadium Diplomacy” on Local Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series 10893, CESifo.
    16. Douglas Barrios & Ana Grisanti & Jose Ramon Morales Arilla & Juan Obach & Johanna Ramos & Jorge Tapia & Miguel Angel Santos, 2018. "There is a Future after Cars: Economic Growth Analysis for Hermosillo," CID Working Papers 96a, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    17. Naito, Hisahiro & Yamamoto, Shinnosuke, 2022. "Is better access to mobile networks associated with increased mobile money adoption? Evidence from the micro-data of six developing countries," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(6).
    18. Bunte, Jonas B. & Desai, Harsh & Gbala, Kanio & Parks, Bradley & Runfola, Daniel Miller, 2018. "Natural resource sector FDI, government policy, and economic growth: Quasi-experimental evidence from Liberia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 151-162.
    19. E. Ustaoglu & R. Bovkır & A. C. Aydınoglu, 2021. "Spatial distribution of GDP based on integrated NPS-VIIRS nighttime light and MODIS EVI data: a case study of Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 10309-10343, July.
    20. Hisahiro Naito & Shinnosuke Yamamoto, 2022. "Is Better Access to Mobile Networks Associated with Increased Mobile Money Adoption? Evidence from the Micro-data of Six Developing Countries," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2022-001, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.