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Estimating Mexican municipal-level economic activity indicators using nighttime lights

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Abstract

In this paper we address the problem of estimating of Municipal-level of Mexican economic activity indicators (IAEM in Spanish) by using different data sources. We build on the preliminary estimations of López-Pérez and Corona (Real Datos Espac Rev Int Estad Geogr 1(3):102–123, 2020), however because of the shortcomings of standard data sources, such as national accounts and economic censuses, in terms of update frequency, this study enhances preliminary estimations with nighttime lights data. We rely on the statistic relation between economic activity with nighttime lights intensity, and the uncorrelatedness of the latter with the measurement error in the preliminary estimations to produce an estimate of true economic growth, as has been described, among others, in and Mendoza (Empir Econ 57(3):971–990, 2019). Our results are interesting in three ways: (i) develops a practitioner's guide for estimating IAEM for all Mexican municipalities since 1993, (ii) for users and analysts of economic information provides detailed results of economic activity evolution for some municipalities, (iii) represent a novel application pursuant Big Data in economics framework.

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Notes

  1. This function is programmed in R language and is available upon request.

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Funding

Elio Atenógenes Villaseñor acknowledges the partial financial support to "GEO-GEE License Program" for the infrastructure provided to the project “Vulnerable Settlements” for the acquisition and processing of geospatial data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico

    Francisco Corona, Elio Atenógenes Villaseñor & Jesús López-Pérez

  2. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, Aguascalientes, Mexico

    Ranyart R. Suárez

Authors
  1. Francisco Corona
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  2. Elio Atenógenes Villaseñor
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  3. Jesús López-Pérez
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  4. Ranyart R. Suárez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francisco Corona.

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Conflict of interest

Francisco Corona declares that he has no conflict of interest. Elio Atenógenes Villaseñor declares that he has no conflict of interest. Jesús López-Pérez declares that he has no conflict of interest. Ranyart Rodrigo Suárez declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Appendix A: IAEM for selected municipalities

Appendix A: IAEM for selected municipalities

figure a
figure b
figure c

Note: Upper panels annual percentage variations, lower IAEM. The solid green line are the preliminary series, the red dotted line estimates with luminosity. Source: Own elaboration by the authors.

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Corona, F., Villaseñor, E.A., López-Pérez, J. et al. Estimating Mexican municipal-level economic activity indicators using nighttime lights. Empir Econ 65, 1197–1214 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02376-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02376-z

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