Drivers of Agricultural Growth in British India (with Vigyan Ratnoo). Revise and Resubmit, European Review of Economic History.
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This paper investigates the impact of public investments on agricultural incomes across colonial India. We use new data in a difference-in-differences framework to show that districts with access to canal irrigation experienced a 22 per cent increase in agricultural incomes and a three to six percentage point decline in subsistence cropping. The effects of canal irrigation were positive across the colonial period and larger in the arid areas. Imperial policy persistently prioritised railway expansion and overlooked investments in canal irrigation which constrained agricultural growth in parts of colonial India.
Indian Equities over the Long-run (with David Chambers, Elias Ohneberg, Luisa Bicalho-Ritzkat). Submitted
Based on listed Indian company data starting in 1909, we find no increase in overall stock market importance until the 1980s. We estimate a new annual series of Indian equity returns over 1900 to 1959. Equities generated a positive real return and risk premium over the risk-free asset. Viewed over the very long-run, the unprecedented market rerating led to a surge in equity performance after 1991 following liberalization. An investor able to access listed Indian equities in London as well as Bombay in the colonial period would have seen similar performance and have benefitted from investing in both markets.
Adaptation to Drought: Evidence from Colonial Indonesia (with Pim de Zwart). Submitted
This paper investigates how and under what conditions farmers adapted to extreme weather events in tropical rainfed agriculture. We use new district-level data and a difference-in-difference estimator to investigate the effects of a major drought that occurred in 1902/3 on land investments and crop production strategies across Java, Indonesia. Our results show that regions most exposed to the drought saw growth in cropland and increase in the cultivation of drought-resistant crops. Drought had heterogenous effects on adaptation depending on market access and colonial institutional conditions. Farmers did not adapt in regions with high land tax or compulsory labour burdens, and they were more adaptive in regions with poorer access to markets, suggesting that adaptation was paramount for local consumption.
Land Reform and Rural Industry in Colonial Taiwan (with Chung-Tang Cheng)
The impacts of land reforms on economic development are disputed. We compile a new dataset that includes the amount of land expropriated, the scale of compensations paid to landowners, the spread of bank branches, the number of industrial firms, industrial output, and industrial employment across 2750 Taiwanese villages during Japanese rule. We find a positive and significant relationship between land reforms in 1905 and rural industrial development in 1918 and 1925. Our results are robust to multiple measures of land reform. The effects are stronger for Taiwanese owned industrial firms. We show that the benefits of land reform are conditional on lucrative landowner compensations and financial development.
The Long History of Child Stunting in India (with Eric Schneider and Juliana Jaramillo Echeverri)
India has one of the highest child stunting rates in the world. Existing literature has offered explanations for these high rates at the country-level or through the use of granular data in the modern-day. There has been little work to show regional variation in stunting rates over time. Using new data at the state-level between 1950 and 2020, this paper fills this gap. It shows that while stunting rates were similar across regions in 1950, rates declined substantially for some states after 1970 while seeing only incremental change in other states till the 1990s. The paper situates these results against institutional changes in health and sanitation over time. More to follow.
Railways and Health in Colonial India (with Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán and Jordi Caum Julio)
Does public investment in transport infrastructure improve economic outcomes? British India housed one of the world’s largest railway networks, and has been the subject of much discussion on the effects of growth in railway access on price convergence, agricultural income, urbanisation, and literacy rates. This project investigates the puzzle of transport and health by exploiting novel, municipal-level data on diseases, mortality rates and railway connectivity. On the one hand, market access and higher incomes could improve nutrition intake and reduce mortality rates. On the other hand, railway connectivity could increase population density, mobility, and the transmission rate of diseases. More to follow.
Uncertainty and Cooperation in Colonial India (with Mattia Bertazzini)
We use the expansion of cooperatives across rural India to investigate the conditions for risk-sharing. We are constructing a district-level dataset of participation in, and performance of, cooperatives in British-ruled India. The paper analyses changes in these indicators against shocks to the rural economy. More to follow.
Diseased Empire: Death and Development in British India (book in progress)