ECIN Replication Package for "Measurement Errors in Popular Night Lights Data May Bias Estimated Impacts of Economic Sanctions: Evidence from Closing the Kaesong Industrial Zone"

This project evaluates economic impacts of the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Zone in North Korea in February 2016. This industrial zone employed over 50,000 North Korean workers in factories owned by South Korean companies, and all operations were stopped to sanction North Korea for nuclear tests. We use DMSP and VIIRS night lights data in a difference-in-difference framework, based on 2012-19 annual composites and using zonal statistics for the sum of lights mostly at the second sub-national level (n=186 spatial units) but also at the first sub-national level (13 provinces or centrally controlled municipalities). The measurement error properties of the DMSP data are also examined by comparison with the more accurate VIIRS data.