British Colonial Institutions and Economic Development in India / Shilpi Kapur, Sukkoo Kim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kapur, Shilpi.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kim, Sukkoo.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12613.

NBER working paper series no. w12613

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

We explore the impact of British colonial institutions on the economic development of India. In some regions, the British colonial government assigned property rights in land and taxes to landlords whereas in others it assigned them directly to cultivators or non-landlords. Although Banerjee and Iyer (2005) find that agricultural productivity of non-landlord areas diverged and out-performed relative to landlord areas after 1965 with the advent of the Green Revolution, we find evidence of superior economic performance of non-landlord regions in both the pre- and the post-independence periods. We believe that landlord and non-landlord regions diverged because their differing property rights institutions led to differences in incentives for development.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2006.