Title:: Colonial institutions and income inequality: evidence from India (1910-1916)
Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between land revenue systems and the levels of agricultural income inequality in colonial India during the 1910s. The first district-level comparative estimates of agricultural income inequality are introduced using wage/income ratios. The type of settlement -which determined when land revenue demands had to be reassessed- is used as an instrument for the land revenue systems to analyse their causal impact on agricultural income inequality. Results show that districts with a larger proportion of non-landlord land revenue systems presented more egalitarian agricultural income distributions. This was due to non-landlord land revenue systems allowing for lower rents and thus a more egalitarian distribution of income.

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