Research outcomes

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles and books from the QuaRCS Network — advancing interdisciplinary science for economic, social, and environmental sustainability through spatial econometrics, machine learning, remote sensing, and regional development. Search, filter by topic or journal, and explore the record year by year.

80Publications
72Journal articles
8Books & chapters
42Journals
Publications by year — click a bar to filter

202610

Article Geocarto International

Spatio-temporal estimation of electricity consumption in Bolivian municipalities using nighttime lights

Oana M. Garbasevschi, Andrea Sofia Garcia de León, Lykke E. Andersen, Guillermo Guzmán Prudencio, Michael Wurm and Hannes Taubenböck·Apr 2026

This paper combines satellite nighttime-lights data with electricity-meter records to estimate spatio-temporal electricity consumption across Bolivian municipalities, providing a high-resolution proxy for local economic …

Remote sensing & nightlights
Article Regional Science Policy & Practice

Illuminating inequality: Heterogeneous effects of financial inclusion on urban-rural economic performance and economic resilience in Papua

Ragdad Cani Miranti and Sri Juli Asdiyanti·Feb 2026

This paper examines the spatial linkage between financial inclusion, economic performance, and economic resilience across 42 districts of Papua Island, integrating remote-sensing (nighttime lights) data with official …

Human capital & developmentInequality & disparities

202515

Article Social Indicators Research

Mapping the dimensions of poverty through big data, socioeconomic surveys and machine learning in Cambodia

Khoun Theara, Ate Poortinga, Soe Thwal, Gonzalez de Alba, Andrea McMahon and Carlos Mendez·Oct 2025

Cambodia has grown rapidly yet remains economically vulnerable, with persistent poverty and limited, outdated subnational data. This study combines big-data sources, machine learning, and the Cambodia Socio-Economic …

Inequality & disparitiesMachine learning & data science
Article Empirical Economics

Bayesian average of classical estimates for panel data: Can the puzzle of the shape of the regional Kuznets curve be solved?

Andres Ramirez-Hassan, Carlos Mendez and Estephania Rueda-Ramirez·Jun 2025

This research evaluates the robustness of the regional Kuznets curve using Bayesian averaging methods for panel data. Simulation results indicate the method successfully identifies variables in the underlying data …

Inequality & disparitiesMachine learning & data science
Article Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Económico

Valoración económica de los servicios ecosistémicos en Bolivia: estimación del aporte de las áreas protegidas y los territorios indígenas

Lykke E. Andersen, Fabiana Karina Argandoña Gonzales, Diego Calderón, Sergio Choque Sunagua, Alvaro Mauricio Muñoz Quisberth, Carla Olmos and Sebastián Miranda·Jun 2025

This paper estimates the economic value of ecosystem services from Bolivia’s natural areas—around US$3.4 billion per year locally and up to roughly US$29 billion including global carbon and biodiversity …

Health & environment
Article Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Económico

Estimación de las emisiones de CO2 por deforestación e incendios en Bolivia entre 2010 y 2023

Lykke E. Andersen, Fabiana Karina Argandoña Gonzales, Carla Olmos, Diego Calderón, Sebastián Miranda, Alvaro Mauricio Muñoz Quisberth and Sergio Choque Sunagua·Jun 2025

Using high-resolution MapBiomas land-cover maps and biomass density data, this paper quantifies Bolivia’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions from deforestation and fires between 2010 and 2023, which frequently exceed …

Health & environmentRemote sensing & nightlights
Article Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences

Predicting subnational GDP in Vietnam with remote sensing data: A machine learning approach

Hussein Suleiman, Minh-Thu Thi Nguyen and Carlos Mendez·Mar 2025

Official subnational Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data in Vietnam has been available only since 2010, hindering the analysis of long-term dynamics of local development. Based on remote sensing data and machine learning …

Remote sensing & nightlightsMachine learning & data science
Article Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences

Persistent regional income inequalities in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a bi-dimensional inequality decomposition analysis

Mitsuhiko Kataoka and Geoffrey Mwenda Kirugi·Mar 2025

This paper uses a bi-dimensional inequality decomposition to analyze the persistence of regional income inequalities across Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic, disentangling the regional and group components of …

Inequality & disparities

202411

Article Applied Economics

Harmonized luminosity and economic activity across provinces in China: Cross-sectional differences, regional time series, and inequality dynamics

Linda Glawe and Carlos Mendez·Dec 2024

This article examines the relationship between income and luminosity across Chinese provinces over the period 2000–2020 using newly harmonized night-time lights (NTL) data. We find that NTL luminosity is suitable for …

Remote sensing & nightlightsRegional convergence & clubs
Article GeoJournal

How does inclusion of digital finance, financial technology, and digital literacy unlock the regional economy across districts in Sumatra? A spatial heterogeneity and sentiment analysis

Ragdad Cani Miranti, Sabar I. Siregar and Ade B. Willyana·Jun 2024

Using district-level nightlight and digitalization data for 2019-2022 with Geographically Weighted Regression, this paper shows that digital finance, financial technology, and digital literacy have positive but spatially …

Human capital & developmentSpatial econometrics
Article Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences

Can higher-quality nighttime lights predict sectoral GDP across subnational regions? Urban and rural luminosity across provinces in Türkiye

Yilin Chen, Ugur Ursavas and Carlos Mendez·Apr 2024

This study investigates whether improved nighttime light data can forecast economic output by sector within regions. Analyzing 81 Turkish provinces from 2004 to 2020, we found that urban NTL data is most strongly …

Remote sensing & nightlightsMoney, prices & macro

20239

Article Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences

Investigating regional income convergence in China: an exploratory spatio-temporal perspective

Yilin Chen, Dohèto Othniel Kpoviessi and Harry Aginta·Apr 2023

Uneven regional development has become an issue in China since the Open and Reform Policy in the 1980s. The imbalance can be observed as the “coastal-west divide” in previous convergence studies. This paper aims to …

Regional convergence & clubsSpatial econometrics
Article The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development

Does GVC participation help industrial upgrading in developing countries? New evidence from panel data analysis

Bangkit A. Wiryawan, Harry Aginta and Al Muizzuddin Fazaalloh·Jan 2023

This study examines whether participation in global value chains (GVCs) promotes industrial upgrading in developing countries, using panel data analysis across a sample of developing economies. The results provide new …

Productivity & structural change

20228

Article The Annals of Regional Science

Regional income convergence and conditioning factors in Turkey: Revisiting the role of spatial dependence and neighbor effects

Ugur Ursavas and Carlos Mendez·Aug 2022

This paper studies regional income convergence and its conditioning factors across 81 provinces of Turkey over the 2007–2019 period. Through the lens of a nonlinear dynamic factor model, we first test the hypothesis that …

Regional convergence & clubsSpatial econometrics

20217

Article Structural Change and Economic Dynamics

Sectoral productivity convergence, input-output structure and network communities in Japan

Alvaro Dominguez, Felipe Santos and Carlos Mendez·Dec 2021

We study sectoral productivity convergence through the input-output structure of the economy and its network representation. In particular, we study 106 production sectors in Japan over the 2003-2012 period and identify …

Productivity & structural changeRegional convergence & clubs
Article Economía

Human Capital Constraints, Spatial Dependence, and Regionalization in Bolivia: A Spatial Clustering Approach

Carlos Mendez and Erick Gonzales·Mar 2021

Using a novel municipal-level dataset and spatial clustering methods, this article studies the distribution of human capital constraints across 339 municipalities in Bolivia. In particular, the spatial distribution of …

Spatial econometricsHuman capital & development
Article GeoJournal

Regional Income Disparities, Distributional Convergence, and Spatial Effects:District-Level Evidence from Indonesia 2000-2017

Carlos Mendez, Anang Budi Gunawan, and Felipe Santos-Marquez·Jan 2021

Using a novel dataset constructed for this study, the spatio temporal dynamics of income per capita across 34 provinces and 514 districts in Indonesia over the 2010-2017 period are analyzed. First, an exploratory spatial …

Regional convergence & clubsSpatial econometrics

20209

Article Regional Science Policy & Practice

Regional Convergence, Spatial Scale, and Spatial Dependence: Evidence from Homicides and Personal Injuries in Colombia 2010-2018

Felipe Santos-Marquez and Carlos Mendez.·Nov 2020

This paper studies regional convergence and spatial dependence of homicides and personal injuries in Colombia. In particular, through the lens of both classical and distributional convergence frameworks, two spatial …

Regional convergence & clubsSpatial econometrics
Article Review of Development Economics

Disparities in Regional Productivity, Capital Accumulation, and Efficiency across Indonesia: A Club Convergence Approach

Carlos Mendez and Mitsuhiko Kataoka·Oct 2020

This paper studies the evolution of regional disparities in labor productivity, capital accumulation, and efficiency across Indonesian provinces over the 1990-2010 period. Through the lens of a non-linear dynamic factor …

Regional convergence & clubsProductivity & structural change
Article Regional Science Policy & Practice

Regional Convergence and Spatial Dependence across Subnational Regions of ASEAN: Evidence from Satellite Nighttime Light Data

Carlos Mendez and Felipe Santos·Aug 2020

Satellite nighttime light data are increasingly used for evaluating the performance of economies in which official statics are non-existent, limited, or non-comparable. In this paper, we use a novel luminosity-based …

Regional convergence & clubsRemote sensing & nightlights
Article Forum of International Development Studies

Labor Productivity, Capital Accumulation, and Aggregate Efficiency Across Countries: New Evidence for an Old Debate

Carlos Mendez·Mar 2020

This article studies the proximate sources of labor productivity differences across countries. Using a panel dataset for 74 countries covering the 1960-2010 period, it first documents that, relative to the US, labor …

Productivity & structural change

20193

Article Economies

Lack of Global Convergence and the Formation of Multiple Welfare Clubs across Countries: An Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach

Carlos Mendez·Oct 2019

The cross-country convergence hypothesis is one of the central topics of long-run macroeconomics. This paper revisits this hypothesis in a context beyond GDP. It uses a novel welfare index that incorporates measures of …

Regional convergence & clubsMachine learning & data science
Article Economies

Industrial Productivity Divergence and Input-Output Network Structures: Evidence from Japan 1973–2012

Alvaro Dominguez and Carlos Mendez·May 2019

Since the early 1990s, there have been larger and increasing labor productivity differences across industries in Japan. More specifically, a clear pattern of sigma and beta divergence across industries is observed. To …

Productivity & structural changeRegional convergence & clubs
Article Empirical Economics Letters

A Comparison of TFP Estimates via Distribution Dynamics: Evidence from Light Manufacturing Firms in Brazil

Carlos Mendez and Erick Gonzales·Mar 2019

This article compares the distribution dynamics of two commonly used TFP estimation frameworks: the control function approach of Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) (LP for short) and the corrected control function approach of …

Productivity & structural changeRegional convergence & clubs

20183

Article Economics Bulletin

On the Distribution Dynamics of Human Development: Evidence from the Metropolitan Regions of Bolivia

Carlos Mendez·Jun 2018

Bolivia has experienced large socioeconomic transformations in the last decades. Among them, almost half of the population currently lives in the main metropolitan regions of the country. Motivated by the potential for …

Regional convergence & clubsHuman capital & development

20171

Article Coyuntural Economics

Heterogeneous Growth and Regional (Di)Convergence in Bolivia: A Distribution Dynamics Approach

Carlos Mendez·Dec 2017

Bolivia has experienced high economic growth rates in the last decade and a half. This fast growth, however, varies largely across its administrative regions. Considering this heterogeneous-growth context, this article …

Regional convergence & clubs

20154

Article Forum of International Development Studies

On the Development Gap between Latin America and East Asia: Welfare, Efficiency, and Misallocation

Carlos Mendez·Feb 2015

Both long economic stagnation in Latin America and sustained growth in East Asia imply a rapidly rising development gap between the two regions. Using a series of numerical decompositions, this article documents three …

Productivity & structural change

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