Satellites shed light on dictators ' lies about economic growth

Research begins with a central premiere, all leaders, like those of democratic countries or dictatorships, want to take pride in a burly economy, report author Louis Martinez says of the Voice of America.

Everyone would like to offer a healthier picture. The fundamental difference is that in democracy we have an entire network of checks and balances that somehow curb this behavior. The basic hypothesis is that when we look at undemocratic regimes, these checks and balances are completely lacking”.

But how can economic growth be measured when you cannot rely on government figures? Research shows that satellite images measuring the intensity of electric lights at night are an indication of economic activity.

A simple example is the night vision of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea shines with the lights, but beyond the capital Seoul, where the border of North Korea lies, the night landscape is mostly dark.

When an economy grows and develops, it is understood that there are constructions such as infrastructure, street lights, residential houses and industry”, says Louis Martinez with University of Chicago.

Martinez used data from the organisation “Freedom House” with headquarters in Washington as a measure of one country's democracy. He then compared official figures of gross domestic production to growth based on satellite images taken at night.

“If you look at two countries and in these two night lighting sites rises at the same pace and one of the countries is more democratic, the same growth rate corresponds to a lower growth of the most democratic country for that period”, says Mr. Martinez.

He studied gross domestic production figures and satellite data for 184 countries for a 20-year period. The model was clear, he says, dictatorships overestimate economic growth.

When we compare the more stable and reliable democracies with the most authoritarian regimes, we are talking about something in the range of 30 to 35 percent. This means that if the actual growth rate is 1 percent, the authoritarian regime will report the growth rate by 1.3 percent”.

Last week, China's authoritarian leader Xi Jinping took the oath of another five-year term.

The model created by Martinez suggests Beijing may have overestimated economic growth by one third over the past two decades, which means that that country's economy is much smaller than claimed. China denies having manipulated economic figures.

The Communist Party reported an economic growth of 3.9% over the third quarter. But the publication of the figures was postponed with few days without explanations, which coincided with the Communist Party's congress. / VOA