Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940 Part I : The Movement of Land Prices

Abstract: I use district-level wage and food price data for the period 1873 to 1906 to investigate the impact of improvements in transportation on the price of labor in late 19th century India. Falling transport costs could have promoted regional wage convergence by facilitating both labor mobility and interregional commodity trade. There is, however, only qualified evidence of wage convergence in late 19th century India, and it appears that the steady-state dispersion of wages was not compressed by the forces of “globalization.” Relatively low rates of internal migration, weak Heckscher–Ohlin factor price convergence forces, and high climatic variability all contribute to this result.

Abstract: An ‘interim sale’ is a sale undertaken with the intention of buying back the same good in the near future. Interim transactions play a prominent role in several markets and they tend to generate multiple equilibria. Such markets can get caught at a low-turnover equilibrium. It is alleged that in many LDCs the market for buying and selling land is extremely inactive. An interim-transactions model is constructed to explain this phenomenon. Wider issues in land markets, including distress sales, are analysed as well. The model is applied also to labour-tying and seasonality in backward agriculture.

Abstract: This study offers the first instalment of a general history of land acquisition in British India, c. 1894–1927. It advances eight principal theses: (i) that the first law of land acquisition was enacted in 1668, as part of a political settlement by the East India Company with the Portuguese landlords of Bombay island; (ii) that, to a remarkable degree, land acquisition law was shaped in the interest of the sterling railway companies; (iii) that the state habitually used land acquisition not so much to effect non- consensual transfers but to ‘launder’ titles free of encumbrances and other claims; (iv) that the primary beneficiaries of land acquisition were public bodies, the sterling railway companies, and elite private interests; (v) that the executive was hostile to legislative and judicial oversight of land acquisition, and successfully resisted or co-opted attempts to impose such oversight; (vi) that the courts were in any event content with the role they were assigned under the 1894 Act, and generally deferred to the executive in land acquisition cases; (vii) that the land-acquiring executive, although hostile to and unencumbered by meaningful legislative and judicial oversight, as a general rule displayed a legal fastidiousness; (viii) that, despite an appearance of impartiality, land acquisition bore the stain of imperialism. These theses are advanced in the course of explaining the failure of the forgotten Kelkar Bill (1927), an attempt by the Maharashtrian nationalist N. C. Kelkar (1872–1947) to enact far-reaching amendments to the Land Acquisition Act 1894. Kelkar’s fellow nationalists withheld their open support from the measure and thereby guaranteed its failure: a counterintuitive choice that, it is argued, exemplifies the tactical compromises of nationalism.

Abstract: We explore the impact of British colonial institutions on the economic development of India. In some regions, the British colonial government assigned property rights in land and taxes to landlords whereas in others it assigned them directly to cultivators or non-landlords. Although Banerjee and Iyer (2005) find that agricultural productivity of non-landlord areas diverged and out-performed relative to landlord areas after 1965 with the advent of the Green Revolution, we find evidence of superior economic performance of non-landlord regions in both the pre- and the post-independence periods. We believe that landlord and non-landlord regions diverged because their differing property rights institutions led to differences in incentives for development.

Abstract: We explore the impact of British colonial institutions on the economic development of India. In some regions, the British colonial government assigned property rights in land and taxes to landlords whereas in others it assigned them directly to cultivators or non-landlords. Although Banerjee and Iyer (2005) find that agricultural productivity of non-landlord areas diverged and out-performed relative to landlord areas after 1965 with the advent of the Green Revolution, we find evidence of superior economic performance of non-landlord regions in both the pre- and the post-independence periods. We believe that landlord and non-landlord regions diverged because their differing property rights institutions led to differences in incentives for development.