Essays in the economic history of India

Thesis

This thesis examines three topics in the Economic History of India. The first chapter, a late contribution to the Great Divergence debate, examines South Indian living standards around 1800, which some have claimed were high. I show that the evidence used, the records of Francis Buchanan, instead suggests that living standards were low. Claims of high living standards rely on implausible assumptions about occupational distributions. Other indirect evidence supports the low living standard view. The second chapter looks at agriculture and land tenure. I argue that traditional tenancy institutions, consisting of many permanent tenancies, in Bengal have been misunderstood. I outline the implications of the tenancy system for the distribution of income, before assessing the path of rents over time. Inflation reduced the burden of the permanent tenants' rents over the long run, benefitting the middle classes at the expense of the landed elite. Land inequality in Bengal was not as high as is commonly assumed, or that high in comparison to other Indian regions, once you account for the property rights of the tenants. Finally, I argue that climate has been the main barrier to raising agricultural productivity. The third chapter examines Indian deindustrialization, the decline in employment in cotton textiles. I build on existing work and construct my own estimates of cotton textile employment. I then examine the big picture up to 1940, particularly the relationship between power loom and hand loom cloth, the path of handicraft earnings, and regional variation, in order to develop a coherent story for the cotton textile industry in this period. I then use a general equilibrium model to assess the relative contributions of trade and technology to deindustrialization. The simulations support the view that technology was the key driver of employment dynamics.

Authors: Nagar, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-141oj67w8
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: India; economic history
• Subjects: Economic history