Drivers of Agricultural Growth in British India (with Vigyan Ratnoo). Under Review.
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This paper investigates the impact of public investments on agricultural incomes across colonial India. Growth amidst pervasive aridity and monsoon volatility required government interventions and the imperial government prioritised the construction of railroads over canal irrigation. We find that initial railroad expansion had a positive effect on incomes in select districts though railway access did not affect cropping patterns, the sensitivity of agricultural output to rainfall volatility, nor incomes between 1890 and 1930. Districts with access to canal irrigation saw crop upgrading, declining output sensitivity to climate volatility and income growth. The paper shows that arid areas benefitted most from access to a canal. Small irrigation investments explain why India remained poor during British rule.
A Century of Indian Equity Returns (with David Chambers, Elias Ohneberg, Luisa Bicalho-Ritzkat)​
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This paper examines the performance of Indian equities over the period from 1909 to 2020. We offer a new series of annual returns for Indian equities for the period 1909–1958. We address three questions. First, we compare Indian equity performance in real terms over the first half of the twentieth century with subsequent performance. Second, we compare Indian equity returns with returns from other emerging markets over the same period. Third, we contrast the importance of dividends with total returns across the period.
Railways and Health in Colonial India (with Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán and Jordi Caum Julio)
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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.
Climate, Risk and Institutional Change in South Asia, 1850-1950
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This paper conceptualizes a new framework to explain why climate affected institutional change and economic development in colonial India. It designs three climate-institution pillars: risk and individual adaptation, risk and collective action, as well as risk and public goods. The paper uses this framework to analyse regional variations in climate vulnerability and resilience, and proposes this framework as a key driver of inequality in a major tropical economy. More to follow.
The Long History of Child Stunting in India (with Eric Schneider and Juliana Jaramillo Echeverri)​
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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.
Voter Preferences on the eve of Democracy: India in 1937 (with Auke Rijpma)
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Interwar India witnessed the largest recorded collective action episodes by group size across global history. This paper asks: Why did Indians mass mobilise? Existing literature focuses on shocks as triggers of mobilisation. We construct new demographic and public investments datasets to explore the long-term, underlying determinants of mass mobilization in a region on the verge of self-government. We investigate predictors of electoral performance for the Indian National Congress in 1937 – the largest vehicle for mass mobilization. Our results show that voter preferences were shaped by religion, urbanization and irrigation investments. Our findings corroborate works which highlight income and fear of underrepresentation as major determinants of participation in emerging democracies and works by historians who emphasise the strong relationship between decolonization and identity-based conflict in India.
Adaptation of Rural Societies to Disaster: Evidence from Colonial Java (with Pim de Zwart)
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Tropical Asia witnessed frequent droughts and floods, often leading to widespread famines in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The majority of works on this topic have either focused on the causes of famine or on the role of state interventions as famine mitigation. Less research has investigated the short- and long-run effects of disasters on adaptive strategies of farmers. In this paper we ask the question: How did rural societies adapt to disasters in colonial Java and what explains variation in adaptation strategies across the island? We exploit regional variation in exposure to the shock of the 1901/1904 famine and explain the effects of the shock on adaptive strategies. More to follow.
Uncertainty and Cooperation in Colonial India (with Mattia Bertazzini)
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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.