Income concentration in British India, 1885–1946

Facundo Alvaredo, Augustin Bergeron, Guilhem Cassan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We use a novel income tax data set to present evidence on the evolution of income concentration in the last 60 years of colonial rule in India. These data allow us to study the evolution of income concentration at the country level as well as the location of top income earners across provinces. We identify three key facts: (1) the evolution of income concentration in British India was nonlinear, following a U-shape, (2) the majority of top income earners were non-Europeans, and (3) the geographical location of top income earners changed over time with the province of Bombay gaining in importance in the early XXth century. We provide an interpretation of these results in the light of the economic and political changes in British India over the period.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)459-469
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Development Economics
Volume127
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2017

Funding

We thank Ga\u00EBl Cassan Brun, Denis Cogneau, Tirthankar Roy, Thomas Piketty, the seminar participants at New Delhi Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, the Paris School of Economics, the EUDN Conference, the ISI conference, three anonymous referees and the editor for valuable comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are our own. We are grateful to Lorenzo Cerda Planas for outstanding research assistance. Financial support from the CEPREMAP, ESRC-DFID Joint Fund (grant no. ES/I033114/1) and the\u00A0Institute for New Economic Thinking is gratefully acknowledged.

FundersFunder number
Institute for New Economic Thinking
Lorenzo Cerda Planas
CEPREMAP
Paris School of Economics
Not added340831
Economic and Social Research CouncilES/I033114/1

    Keywords

    • Colonization
    • India
    • Inequality
    • Top incomes

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Income concentration in British India, 1885–1946'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this