Blinded by the Light: Economic Analysis of Severe Light Pollution

This paper examines severe light pollution such as commonly found in largeurban areas. Light pollution is the unintended negative consequences of poorly designedand injudiciously used artificial lighting. Light pollution generates significant costsincluding wasted energy and damage to human health, wildlife, recreation, and the beautyof the night sky. Typically, light-pollution models emphasize population density andignore economic factors. Economic analysis of the issue has been singularly limited.Previous economic research has focused on widespread, but very low levels of lightpollution. This paper makes a unique contribution by analyzing economic factors ofsevere light pollution. The paper utilizes economic data from the World Bank and uniqueremote sensing data for 184 countries to quantify the economic causes of severe lightpollution