Falling behind and catching up
India's transition from a colonial economy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4352432 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 803-827 |
| Publication date | 2019-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ehr.12849 |
| OpenAlex | W2784576972 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 61 |
India fell behind during colonial rule. The absolute and relative decline of Indian GDP per capita with respect to Britain began before colonization and coincided with the rise of the textile trade with Europe. However, the fortunes of the traditional textile industry cannot explain the decline in the eighteenth century and stagnation in the nineteenth century as India integrated into the global economy of the British Empire. Inadequate investment in agriculture and consequent decline in yield per acre stalled economic growth. Modern industries emerged and grew relatively fast. The reversal began after independence. Policies of industrialization and a green revolution in agriculture increased productivity in agriculture and industry. However, India's growth in the closing decades of the twentieth century has been led by services. A concentration of human capital in the service sector has origins in colonial policy. Expenditure on education prioritized higher education, creating an advantage for the service sector. At the same time, the slow expansion of primary education lowered the accumulation of human capital and put India at a disadvantage in comparison with the fast-growing economies of East Asia
Agriculture · Colonialism · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · Independence (probability theory) · Industrialisation · Market economy · Per capita · Per capita income · Political science · Population · Productivity · Tertiary sector of the economy · Economic Growth and Productivity · Economic Theory and Policy · Indian Economic and Social Development
Colonial Cities and Urbanization
Pre-Colonial Warfare and Long-Run Development in India
Adam Smith on the “Wretched Spirit of Monopoly” in the East Indies Trade
Maritime dependency and economic prosperity
Comparison of leading‐industrialisation and crossing‐industrialisation economic growth patterns in the context of sustainable development
Railways and cities in India
West Indies technologies in the East Indies
The Boxer Rebellion
Anticorruption, Development, and the Indian State
Poverty or prosperity in northern India? New evidence on real wages, 1590s-1870s
Rulers, townsmen, and bazaars
A New Economic History of Colonial India
Small Town Capitalism in Western India
State-Directed Development
Agricultural Trends in India, 1891-1947
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not
Getting Interventions Right
Does Trade Cause Growth?
History, Social Divisions, and Public Goods in Rural India
History, Institutions, and Economic Performance
De‐industrialization in India in the nineteenth century
The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660–1760
Facts and myths about Korea’s economic past
Colonialism and Industrialisation
Where do high growth political economies come from? The Japanese lineage of Korea's “developmental state”
The historical roots of India’s service-led development
India and the great divergence
Railways and the expansion of markets in India, 1861–1921
Korea's first industrial revolution, 1911–1940
Employment in nineteenth century Indian textiles
Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th century India
The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595
Colonial Legacies
East & West
Bullion for Goods
Population and Standards of Living in Akbar's Time
The early modern great divergence
Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925
Railroads of the Raj
The Political Economy of Underdevelopment
Does history matter? Colonial education investments in India
Discrimination or Social Networks? Industrial Investment in Colonial India
In Pursuit of Luxury
Accounting for Growth
Identifying the woes of the cotton textile industry in Bengal
Lancashire, India, and shifting competitive advantage in cotton textiles, 1700-1850
The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720
Latin America
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |