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Discrimination or community networks? A tale of two industrial cities in colonial India
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Gupta, Bishnupriya (2011) Discrimination or community networks? A tale of two industrial cities in colonial India. Working Paper. Coventry: Department of Economics, Warwick. (Unpublished)
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Abstract
This paper seeks to explain the pattern of industrial investment in India under British rule. While the export oriented industries, such as tea and jute relied largely on British investment, the major import substituting activity, the cotton textile industry, was dominated by Indian owned firms. While the existing literature has explained the dominant role of British investment mainly using political and social advantages arising from the imperial domination of policy and its access to economic and social networks, this paper argues that informational factors play an important role in determining this industrial divide. British entrepreneurs had good knowledge of the export market, in the mother country, that Indians did not have. On the other hand, Indian industrial entrepreneurs had extensive knowledge of the local market, coming from their background in trade. Thus the divergent flow of entrepreneurship can be explained by the comparative advantage that each type of had, Indians for the import substituting industry, and British for the export industries.The paper emphasizes the role of community networks in determining entry into industry.
Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Publisher: | Department of Economics, Warwick | ||||
Place of Publication: | Coventry | ||||
Official Date: | October 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) |
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