• Media type: Report; E-Book
  • Title: Measuring Firm Activity from Outer Space
  • Contributor: Bilicka, Katarzyna Anna [Author]; Seidel, André [Author]
  • imprint: Munich: Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), 2022
  • Language: English
  • Keywords: H26 ; F23 ; multinational firms ; nightlight data ; global firm networks ; H32
  • Origination:
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  • Description: 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.
  • Access State: Open Access