Local GDP Estimates Around the World

Esteban Rossi-Hansberg and Jialing Zhang

No 33458, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We use high-resolution spatial data to build a novel global annual gridded GDP dataset at 1°, 0.5°, and 0.25° resolutions from 2012 onward. Our random forest model trained on local and national GDP achieves an R² above 0.92 for GDP levels and above 0.62 for annual changes in regions left out of the training sample. By incorporating diverse indicators beyond population and nighttime lights, our estimates offer more precise subnational GDP measurements for analyzing economic shocks, local policies, and regional disparities. We evaluate the precision of our estimates with a sample case of COVID-19’s impact on local GDP in China.

JEL-codes: E0 F0 R0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cmp, nep-geo and nep-ure
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Published as Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Jialing Zhang, 2026. "Local GDP estimates around the world," Journal of Urban Economics, vol 154.

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Working Paper: Local GDP Estimates Around the World (2025)
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