What Nighttime Lights Can Tell Us About Economic Performance

The allocation of EU funding is accompanied by an increase in nighttime lights in the communities that receive it. For this article, the researchers were the first to merge satellite data with a funding database that listed individual projects as a way to measure the small-scale effects of EU regional funding at the community level. Their observations revealed that a 1 percent increase in funding during the 2007–2013 EU funding period was associated with 0.007 percent more lights at night in the receiving communities. The researchers believe this could indicate a 0.0014 percent improvement in economic performance.