The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled “The Destruction of Gaza: Satellite Measurements of the Economic Cost of War” on Friday, December 12, 2026. The seminar featured a presentation by Jean-Louis Arcand, Professor of Economics, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva: and Affiliate Professor, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnic, Rabat. The session was chaired by Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP.

About the event

This talk explored how satellite-based night-time lights are reshaping development economics. It explained how remote sensing can track economic activity, strengthen impact evaluations, and provide detailed evidence for big macroeconomic questions. It also showed how these tools guide policy in places that are hard to survey or affected by conflict, including recent assessments of damage and economic loss. Overall, it highlighted how remote sensing expands what we can measure when traditional data are limited or unavailable.

Speaker

 Jean-Louis Arcand

Professor Jean-Louis Arcand is a Canadian economist and professor of economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, as well as an affiliate professor at the Université Mohammed VI Polytechnic in Rabat. He is a Founding Fellow of the European Development Research Network (EUDN), a Senior Fellow at the Fondation pour les études et recherches en développement international (FERDI) and has been a Visiting Professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, Universidade Federal da Bahia and several universities in Africa and the Caribbean. He was assistant and then Associate Professor at the University of Montréal, and Professor at the Centre d’études et de recherches en développement international (CERDI).

Jean-Louis holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an MPhil from Cambridge University and a BA (high honors) from Swarthmore College. He became the president of GDN in January 2023.

Chair & Moderator

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP.  Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.