Estimating French Regional Income: Departmental Per Capita Gross Value Added, 1872–1911

In this chapter, I estimate French regional gross value added per capita in constant terms between 1872 and 1911, to better understand regional inequalities within the country and to allow comparison with other European regions. To this end, I develop a novel regional income estimation model, where income is specified as a function of shifts in sectoral employment structure. Its conceptual basis is uncontroversial, its data requirements are low, and it withstands robustness checks.