We construct the first estimates of U.S. county nominal and real GDP by broadly defined industrial sectors from 1870 to 2018. Counties tended to converge from 1870 until 1970, but subsequently grew apart. Falling inequality between states explains most of the fall in county inequality from 1870...

It has long been known that the city-size distributions are fat tailed, drawing the interest of urban economists. In contrast, not much is known about the distribution of GDP at city level (henceforth referred to as gross metropolitan product, GMP). We build a model of the spatial economy that...