Syria in the Dark: Estimating the Economic Consequences of the Civil War through Satellite-Derived Night Time Lights

The Syrian Civil War has begun in 2011 and is still wrecking enormous damages on the country's economy, with an impressive toll measured in deaths, migration, and the destruction of the Syrian historical heritage and physical infrastructure. This paper examines the impact of the War on Syria's economy from the perspective of outer space, to bypass the issue of data availability due to the inaccessibility of the war-ravaged territory. The estimates obtained in this way are more pessimistic than the ones reported by international organisations. Starting from our estimates, we provide long-term projections for the country's economy, and estimate the window for GDP recovery at the pre-war levels. We discuss geo-political implications which could prevent our projections from happening.