Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company (EIC) operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress...

The East India Company's conquest of India was facilitated by the behavior of its Indian rivals who not only did not ally against it, but often supported it militarily. Historians have typically attributed this to myopia, the failure to understand the long-term threat represented by the Company....

Since the economic reforms of the 1990s, India's economy has grown rapidly. To sustain growth and foreign investment over the long run requires a well-developed legal infrastructure for conducting business, including cheap and reliable contract enforcement and secure property rights. But it's...