EffDist V2026
Elizaveta Gonchar, Ian Helfrich
Global gridded effective-distance dataset built on WorldPop population grids and GHS-SMOD settlement layers. Uses Brockmann-Helbing-style effective distance through a probability-weighted flow graph instead of geographic great-circle distance.
Pairwise effective-distance matrices at the country, regional, and urban-rural levels, built for use in trade-gravity equations, migration models, and bilateral-exposure work. Headed for Zenodo on publication. Companion paper: Gonchar-Helfrich (2025) “Trade in the Spotlight” (SSRN 5202676).
A full data dictionary, processing scripts, and reproducibility notes will live in the release repo. If you’d like early access for academic use, write to Ian.