Measuring Firm Activity from Outer Space

Katarzyna Bilicka and Andre Seidel

No 17220, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: To understand how global firm networks operate, we need consistent information on their activities, unbiased by their reporting choices. In this paper, we collect a novel dataset on the light that factories emit at night for a large sample of car manufacturing plants. We show that nightlight data can measure activity at such a granular level, using annual firm financial data and high-frequency data related to Covid-19 pandemic production shocks. We use this data to quantify the extent of misreported global operations of these car manufacturing firms and examine differences between sources of nightlight.

Keywords: Multinational firms; Nightlight data; Global firm networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 H26 H32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-04
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Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring Firm Activity from Outer Space (2022)
Working Paper: Measuring Firm Activity from Outer Space (2022)
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