Nighttime Light, Superlinear Growth, and Economic Inequalities at the Country Level

Research has highlighted relationships between size and scaled growth across a large variety of biological and social organisms, ranging from bacteria, through animals and plants, to cities an companies. Yet, heretofore, identifying a similar relationship at the country level has proven challenging. One reason is that, unlike the former, countries have predefined borders, which limit their ability to grow "organically." This paper addresses this issue by identifying and validating an effective m...