Assume (I don't have an Economist sub) it's based off this paper https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2021-78.pdf https://bfi.uchicago.edu

Assume (I don't have an Economist sub) it's based off this paper https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2021-78.pdf https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2... Others include this from 2015 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/isqu.12143 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/isqu.12143 What the data explicitly shows is that night light intensity increased faster than GDP increased in countries classed as "free" than countries classed as "non-free". (the model itself makes no assumptions that the most democratic countries report growth figures accurately. An alternative interpretation equally compatible with the data is that democratic countries deliberately underreport their GDP growth, but that's a lot sillier than assuming autocracies lie, or exaggerate more) The obvious perturbing factor is that countries classed as "non-free" also tend to start off poorer and more inegalitarian (the link between the two is generally assumed causal, but both ways causal) so the oilfields raking in cash doesn't necessarily translate to more electricity for the average citizen, and the countries classed as non-free are on average growing faster (even after taking into account the estimated inflation of the GDP figure) and since it's not estimated on a per capita basis the GDP figure grows through population growth. Economists can try to control for this, but controls aren't perfect. The "free" countries are also a relatively homogenous group of countries which started relatively wealthy and experienced modest GDP growth with relatively little disruption or demographic change. Satellite light data also isn't a particularly great proxy for citizen welfare. It's an indicator as it's broadly proportional to increased access to electricity (and its regional distribution) and light intensity growth correlates well with GDP growth. But those "free" countries tended to have affordable household lighting everywhere anyway; the extra light being pumped into mall car parks and advertising hoardings and bigger traffic jams are pretty loosely linked to the welfare improvements we've experienced since 1991.