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Data and Code for: Shining a Light on Purchasing Power Parities

URL
https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/111003/
Description

These are replication files for: Pinkovskiy, Maxim L. and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. 2019. “Shining a Light on Purchasing Power Parities.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

We use satellite-recorded nighttime lights as an independent benchmark of economic activity (Pinkovskiy and Sala-i-Martin (2016)) in order to generate three findings in the study of PPP-adjusted estimates of GDP. First, PPP-adjusted estimates better describe poor economies than do market exchange rate-based estimates today, although this was not the case in the late 1990s. Second, estimates of PPPs have been steadily improving from one price survey round to the next. Third, it has tended to be optimal to only use the latest price data, and hence, to revise existing PPP-adjusted estimates whenever a new price survey is released.

Geographic Coverage:  World

Time Period:    1/1/1985 – 1/1/2013

Data Type(:    aggregate data

Data Sources:   Penn World Tables
World Development Indicators
Satellite-recorded Nighttime Lights

Geographic Unit:   Country

The following publications are supplemented by the data in this project.

  • Pinkovskiy, Maxim, and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. “Shining a Light on Purchasing Power Parities.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 12, no. 4 (October 1, 2020): 71–108. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.20190037.

The following publications relate in an unspecified way to the data in this project.

  • Bluhm, Richard, and Melanie Krause. “Top Lights-Bright Cities and Their Con- Tribution to Economic Development.” Working Paper. CESIfo, 2018.

  • Dell, Melissa, Benjamin F Jones, and Benjamin A Olken. “Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 4, no. 3 (July 2012): 66–95. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.4.3.66.

 

Format
Single study
Country
Multinational/Crossnational
Title
Data and Code for: Shining a Light on Purchasing Power Parities
Format
Single study

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