ABSTRACT
This chapter has a twofold objective: (1) it presents a new data set that provides GDP per capita, and GDP, employment and population at the level of NUTS 2 for the French regions throughout the period 1860–2010; and (2) it discusses some basic stylized facts about the evolution of French regional inequality in the long run. In order to construct this new regional data set of French economic data, we combine our new regional GDP figures for the years 1911, 1921, 1954, 1962, 1975 and 1982 with the series published by Combes et al. (2011) for 1860, 1896 and 1930 and the official series produced for the INSEE for 1990, 1999 and 2010. This data set allows us to provide a complete picture of the evolution of spatial income inequalities within France, with decadal information since 1860. French regional income inequality decreased slowly from 1860 until 1982; since then, however, the process has reversed, led by the outstanding dominance of Paris region.
