State, society and market in the aftermath of natural disasters in colonial India

Tirthankar Roy

The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2008, vol. 45, issue 2, 261-294

Abstract: How did South Asian societies rebuild their economies following natural disasters? Based on five episodes from colonial India, this article suggests that between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century, the response to disasters changed from laissez-faire to more state intervention. Despite this change, post-disaster rebuilding was complicated by unspecified rights to lost property, conflicting claims to property, asymmetric information between aid-givers and receivers, conflicts between agencies, lack of cooperation between gainers and losers, and in some of these examples, clashes between the colonial state and nationalist organisations.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indeco:v:45:y:2008:i:2:p:261-294

DOI: 10.1177/001946460804500204

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