Using satellite imagery to measure the impacts of new highways: An application to India

IF 4 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Journal of International Economics Pub Date : 2026-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-12-13 DOI:10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104201

Kathryn Baragwanath , Gordon Hanson , Amit K. Khandelwal , Chen Liu , Hogeun Park

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Abstract

This paper integrates daytime and nighttime satellite imagery into a spatial general-equilibrium model to evaluate the returns to investments in new motorways. Our approach has particular value in developing-country settings in which spatially granular economic data are scarce. To demonstrate our method, we use publicly available imagery to evaluate India’s road construction projects in the early 2000s. Estimating the model and evaluating welfare impacts only requires remotely-sensed data. We find that India’s road investments improved aggregate welfare, particularly for the largest and smallest urban markets. Welfare gains were unevenly distributed across space, with the Golden Quadrilateral disproportionately benefiting large, already connected markets, while national highway upgrades delivered greater gains to smaller, more remote locations. More generally, within-district variation explains a large share of the overall spatial variance in welfare changes during this period, underscoring the value of high-resolution satellite imagery for capturing localized economic effects.

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利用卫星图像测量新公路的影响：在印度的应用

本文将白天和夜间卫星图像整合到一个空间一般均衡模型中，以评估新高速公路的投资回报。我们的方法在空间粒度经济数据稀缺的发展中国家环境中具有特别的价值。为了证明我们的方法，我们使用公开的图像来评估21世纪初印度的道路建设项目。估算模型和评估福利影响只需要遥感数据。我们发现，印度的道路投资改善了总福利，特别是对于最大和最小的城市市场。福利收益在空间上分布不均，黄金四边形不成比例地受益于已经连通的大型市场，而国家高速公路升级则为更小、更偏远的地区带来了更大的收益。更一般地说，区域内的差异解释了这一时期福利变化总体空间差异的很大一部分，强调了高分辨率卫星图像在捕捉局部经济影响方面的价值。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of International Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

5.80

自引率

6.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of International Economics is intended to serve as the primary outlet for theoretical and empirical research in all areas of international economics. These include, but are not limited to the following: trade patterns, commercial policy; international institutions; exchange rates; open economy macroeconomics; international finance; international factor mobility. The Journal especially encourages the submission of articles which are empirical in nature, or deal with issues of open economy macroeconomics and international finance. Theoretical work submitted to the Journal should be original in its motivation or modelling structure. Empirical analysis should be based on a theoretical framework, and should be capable of replication.