1974/09/01 by Michelle Burge McAlpin · 57 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Agricultural economics #Agricultural risk and resilience #Agriculture #Business #Cash crop #Economics #Economy #Finance #Geography #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Market economy #Peasant #Political science #Production (economics) #Rationality #Revenue #Social and Economic Development in India #Welfare
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022050700079845
published in The Journal of Economic History 34(3), 662-684 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1974/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/19
In the literature on India's economic history, there has been a long debate on the influence of railroad development on the welfare of Indian farmers. Some economists and historians have argued that rail development increased welfare by providing new markets for agricultural products and permitting rising rural incomes. Others have argued that railroads had detrimental effects on welfare because, by encouraging cultivation of non-food crops (like cotton) and export crops (like wheat), they reduced the domestic food supply. Those who have stressed the adverse effects of railroads have seen these effects as a consequence of imperialist economic relations between Britain and India. In this view, the combination of British land revenue policy and rail construction transformed the rural economy. The need to pay the land revenue in cash forced fanners to grow some crop for sale; the railroads permitted non-local (or even non-Indian) demand to influence the prices at which different crops could be sold.