The performance of Indian railways in the nineteenth century provides a great context to study the effects of state ownership on productivity and other aspects of firm operations. We rely on a key feature of the institutional background whereby the colonial Government of India purchased a...

It is widely recognized that railways were one of the most important drivers of economic growth in the 19th and 20th century, but it is less recognized that railways had a different impact across countries. In this paper, we first estimate the growth impact of Indian railways, one of the largest...

Did colonial policies in India deliver excessive returns to British investors? We answer this question using annual data on Indian securities trading on the London Stock Exchange. We present new series on market capitalization, capital gains, dividend yields, and total returns of railway...

This chapter reviews the economic performance of Indian railways in particular the development and organization of the network, the trends in railway performance, the effects of ownership and regulatory policies, and the impact of railways on the Indian economy. We highlight four main points....