Indigenous and Colonial Origins of Comparative Economic Development : The Case of Colonial India and Africa

Bayly, C. A.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    AGRARIAN SOCIETY;    AGRICULTURE;    ANCIENT SYSTEM;    ANTHROPOLOGISTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4474
RP-ID  :  WPS4474

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper concerns the institutionalorigins of economic development, emphasizing the cases ofnineteenth-century India and Africa. Colonialinstitutions-the law, western style property rights,newspapers and statistical analysis-played an important partin the emergence of Indian public and commercial life in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries. These institutionsexisted in the context of a state that was extractive andyet dependent on indigenous cooperation in many areas,especially in the case of the business class. In suchconditions, Indian elites were critical in creating informalsystems of peer-group education, enhancing aspirationthrough the use of historicist and religious themes and increating a "benign sociology" of India as aprelude to development. Indigenous ideologies and practiceswere as significant in this slow enhancement of Indiancapabilities as transplanted colonial ones. Contemporarydevelopment specialists would do well to consider the meritsof indigenous forms of association and public debate,religious movements and entrepreneurial classes. Over muchof Asia and Africa, the most successful enhancement ofpeople's capabilities has come through the action ofhybrid institutions of this type.