GAME-LIGHTS – the gridded Meteorological Events and Night Light Emission Database

The Scope of GAME-LIGHTS

GAME-LIGHTS comprises cell-level data on a yearly basis for different types of events capturing their physical intensity. It covers the whole world and various types of weather anomalies, night-time light emission data and grid cell population data. The data are assembled from millions of observations worldwide with respective measures of intensity and cell-country location dating back to 1992. GAME-LIGHTS translates daily weather station, satellite and hurricane track data into meteorological events (droughts, torrential rain, storms, and cold waves). It provides a comprehensive documentation of the data.

The data are linked with socioeconomic indicators of countries such as population and night-time light emission satellite data.

Using GAME-LIGHTS

Before using the data contained in the GAME-LIGHTS database, it is necessary for the user to understand the structure in which the data are presented in GAME-LIGHTS. We document the features of the GAME-LIGHTS database in the codebook section, as well as in the following paper:

Felbermayr, G., Gröschl, J., Sanders, M., Schippers, V., Steinwachs, T., The Economic Impact of Weather Anomalies, World Development, 2021, forthcoming.

One of the biggest challenges when working with raw meteorological data is to bring them to the grid level for economic analysis and to ensure comparability across cells and over time. Thus, before using GAME-LIGHTS, please make sure to read the codebook section and Felbermayr et al. (2021, forthcoming) carefully to get familiar with the procedures taken for the yearly grid cell level dataset.

GAME-LIGHTS stores its data in STATA (.dta) format. The codebook section provides information on original sources, from which the raw GAME-LIGHTS data have been drawn, as well as the names, definitions and labels for each variable contained in GAME-LIGHTS.

Conditions of Use

The data are provided free of charge. We document the data as good as - we think - we possibly could, including references to the original primary sources from which the data are drawn. By downloading data from GAME-LIGHTS, you assume full responsibility for their use. We cannot provide assistance on issues of research design, let alone statistical analysis.

If you are fully convinced you discovered an error and have checked this against the original sources, please contact us at groeschl@ifo.de for the yearly data.

Data Download

GAME-LIGHTS Dataset

How to Cite the GAME-LIGHT Database

When using the yearly GAME-LIGHT data please reference it as follows:

Felbermayr, G., Gröschl, J., Sanders, M., Schippers, V., Steinwachs, T., The Economic Impact of Weather Anomalies, World Development Volume 151, 105745, 2022.

We would also be grateful if you could send an electronic copy of any work featuring data from the Ifo GAME database to us at groeschl@ifo.de.