Evaluation of economic inequality in ‘the Belt and Road’ region – The application of night‐time satellite imagery

The main aim of this paper is to explore economic inequality in ‘the Belt and Road’ region where the investigation of the economic status is important but remains underdeveloped. The application of night‐time satellite imagery in 2015 can effectively make up for the shortcomings of insufficient data at various scales, especially for developing countries. We explored inequality at a multi‐scale level using the Theil decomposition method. As a result, (1) night‐time light data can present economic development and assess inequality in ‘the Belt and Road’ region. (2) The between‐sub‐region inequality contributed most to disparity, while the between‐country inequality was the least. Night‐time light data in West Asia and Central and Eastern Europe was higher than that in other sub‐regions. Countries within Central, Southeast and West Asia exhibited high inequalities, indicating an obvious sub‐regional pattern. (3) Both positive and negative impacts of economic growth on inequality are observed, indicating that ‘the Belt and Road’ countries are in different stages of economic development. Nightlight satellite imagery can effectively monitor social‐economic development and will play an important role in the implementation of ‘the Belt and Road’ initiative and achieving the sustainable development goals.