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NASA/Creative Commons
A view of the Middle East at night
# All of the Lights
Political favouritism can now be seen from space
A new study by an Australian university has used night time light to establish that economic activity gravitates towards the birth places of political leaders.
IT WOULD BE expected that there would be a correlation between the birthplaces of political leaders and regional economic activity. But now a new study has set out to show this for fact, using light intensity at night to prove political favoritism.
It had already been established by previous research that there is a correlation between economic activity and light generated at night.
This new research uses the birth places of leaders from 126 countries around the world to establish clear ties between the birthplace of political leaders and economic activity. The study used satellite data on night time light intensity from 38,427 sub-national regions from 1992 to 2009
North Korea is a clear example of where night time light clearly exemplifies the economic fortune of a particular region. In an image taken from the International Space Station, North Korea is seen to be covered in almost total night time darkness. This is in stark contrast with China and South Korea, both both of whom border North Korea.
Dr Paul Raschky from the Monash Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability said “our results suggest that being the leader’s birthplace increases night-time intensity and regional GDP by around four and one per cent respectively”.
Such favoritism was found to be most common in countries with weak political institutions and a poorly educated population.
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