Law and the Economy in India Before Independence and After

Law matters for economic development but where does it come from? And through what mechanisms does it affect different parts of the economy? In this insightful volume Tirthankar Roy and Anand V. Swamy start in the late eighteenth century tracing the evolution of the British-Indian legal system as it emerged in the service of a cautious and self-serving colonial regime. They show that British-Indian law was designed to facilitate tax collection permit international trade and above all keep the regime in place. Since independence the Indian state has been much more confident and ambitious seeking economic growth equity and poverty reduction. Therefore it has also been far more interventionist in policy and in law. Roy and Swamy have put together this entire two-hundred-fifty-year legal and economic history in a single narrative for the first time offering a unique perspective on the challenges of today.