HBS Working Knowledge Paper: Colonial Land Tenure, Electoral Competition and Public Goods in India

Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer have published yesterday a paper that attempts to explain

“the impact of a specific historical institution on long-term development, specifically the land tenure systems instituted during British colonial rule. The paper compares the long-term development outcomes between areas where controls rights in land were historically given to a few landlords and areas where such rights were more broadly distributed. The paper also documents the impact of these differing historical institutions on political participation and electoral competition in the post-colonial period.”

Link to the .pdf of the entire paper is here.