History Institutions and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India | Land Portal

Informations sur la ressource

Date of publication: 
juin 2015
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
OSF_preprint:461F8-F1F-CEF

This paper analyze the colonial institutions set up by the British to collect land revenue in India, and show that differences in historical property rights institutions lead to sustained differences in economic outcomes. Areas in which proprietary rights in land were historically given to landlords have significantly lower agricultural investments, agricultural productivity and investments in public goods in the post-Independence period than areas in which these rights were given to the cultivators. It has been verified that these differences are not driven by omitted variables or endogeneity of the historical institutions, and argue that they probably arise because differences in institutions lead to very different policy choices. [Working Paper No. 003] British, India, historical, landlords, agricultural, investments, independence, policy choices, history, land tenure, development

Auteurs et éditeurs

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Abhijit Banerjee
Lakshmi Iyer

Fournisseur de données

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