Night-time brilliance lights up political patronage

In some countries, a region that can lay claim to being the birthplace of a country's political leader is likely to get preferential treatment -- bias that shines out when the intensity of night lights is compared with that in other regions. Using information on the birthplaces of political leaders in 126 countries, and satellite data on night-time light intensity from 38,427 subnational regions from 1992-2009, researchers established a strong relationship between light intensity and regional GDP.

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