Remote Sensing and the Political Economy of Development

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

As satellite technology improves, remote sensing continues to grow in prominence as a source of novel data for the study of classic questions in the political economy of development. Remote sensing data allows scholars to measure fine-grained outcomes at scale in developing countries without relying solely on household surveys or difficult-to-obtain administrative records. Initially, the most influential source of remote sensing data was night-time light imagery used to proxy for wealth. But applications of satellite data are now expanding significantly beyond that, leveraging advances in machine learning to extract information from high-resolution daytime imagery as well.

This panel combines four papers suggesting new applications of under-used remote sensing data. The authors employ satellite data on agricultural land use, fire signatures, government infrastructure, and urban housing in applications geographically spanning South America, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, while also combining and validating these remotely-sensed proxies with detailed administrative data collected through intensive fieldwork. Substantively, the papers address central research areas in the existing literature, exploring electoral accountability, property rights, state-building, and the politics of economic inequality. By bringing these papers together, the panel seeks to generate discussion and new insights about how to best leverage remotely-sensed data and advanced machine learning tools to further expand research frontiers in the political economy of development.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• From Paper to Digital: Understanding the Ecological Impacts of Land Reform - Saad Gulzar, Princeton University; Aliz Toth, London School of Economics; Anzony Quispe Rojas, Princeton University

• State Expansion in Contemporary Africa: Evidence from Satellite Imagery - Jamie Hintson, Stanford Univeristy

• The Footprints of Urban Inequality in Africa - Noah Nathan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Shuning Ge, University of Pennsylvania

• Playing with Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the License to Burn - Kathryn Baragwanath, Australian Catholic University; Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez, University of California, Santa Barbara; Yifan He, University of California, Santa Barbara

Chair

• Erik M. Wibbels University of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Brian Min University of Michigan