Correlation Exploration between Residents' Economic Well-Being and Nighttime Lights

Economic well-being is a critical indicator for assessing the effectiveness of poverty alleviation initiatives. As a multidimensional concept, it includes both objective indicators, such as levels of economic development, and subjective dimensions, such as individuals' perceptions and experiences. Despite its importance as a measure of socioeconomic vitality, the empirical relationship between night-time light intensity and economic wellbeing remains insufficiently examined. To explore this relationship, this study employed household survey data and data from the China Economic Statistical Yearbook to calculate subjective and objective measures of economic well-being, respectively. A fusion model integrating both dimensions was developed, and highresolution night-time light data from the Sustainable Development Satellite (SDGSAT-1) were used to assess their correlation through statistical analysis. The key findings are as follows: (1) For subjective economic well-being derived from survey data, the entropy weight method was used to assign indicator weights, thereby highlighting the relative importance of each factor. This method produced more accurate and robust estimates than the traditional equal-weighting approach. (2) Based on data from the China Economic Statistical Yearbook, the study found that objective economic well-being at the township level closely correlates with economic development, displaying marked spatial heterogeneity. (3) The correlation analysis between township-level economic well-being and the average intensity of night-time lights yielded an <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{R}^{\mathbf{2}}$</tex> value of 0.377, indicating a statistically significant association. This study is the first to systematically integrate subjective and objective measures of economic well-being using both household survey and statistical data, and to analyze their correlation with night-time light intensity, offering critical theoretical support for large-scale spatial modeling of economic well-being and poverty alleviation evaluations.