Does anyone know of any papers that use a measure of economic activity at the state (or preferably county) level for time periods between 1940 and 1950? Just looking for a justifiable proxy that is measured annually.
State sales tax data starts in the early 1950s, so that doesn't work. Something like sales of a particular consumer good would work, but I'm not aware of any data there. Not HRM, so I don't think social security micro-data is going to be an option for me.
This seems like something economic historians might have put together, or an eager young JMC of the last several years. Any leads?