Dasgupta, Aditya. "Technological Change, Inequality, and Social Unrest: Evidence from Agriculture ".

Abstract: Technological change is often biased, producing wealth that is distributed unequally across social groups. Does technology-driven inequality contribute to social unrest? Such concerns date to the work of Karl Marx, but have acquired renewed salience in the age of artificial intelligence and robots. This paper draws lessons from a major technological revolution in agriculture: the green revolution. In India, the spread of a new crop technology, high-yielding variety (HYV) crops, improved agricultural productivity, but also generated rising inequality between landowners and the rural poor. Drawing on a panel dataset linking district-level estimates of HYV crop adoption to digitized crime records, this paper provides evidence that the spread of the new crop technology contributed to a wave of banditry (dacoity), a crime associated with class conflict in agrarian societies. The technology-violence relationship was concentrated in districts with colonial-era landlord-based (zamindari) land tenure systems, plausibly because of less pass-through of agricultural productivity improvements to wages. The findings highlight the socially destabilizing effects of technological change, as well as as the role of institutions in moderating this relationship via the distributional channel. 

Dasgupta, Aditya and Amreeta Das. "Urbanization and the Rise of the Right in India". 

Abstract: In recent decades, right-wing parties have made significant electoral inroads around the world. This paper investigates the role of urbanization in the rise of the right in India. Connecting satellite-based estimates of urban extent over time to electoral returns at the parliamentary constituency level, we provide evidence that long-term urbanization has played a critical role in the rise of the BJP. Analyses isolating plausibly exogenous variation in urban expansion arising from topography, using a novel deep learning algorithm, suggest that the relationship is causal. Additional analysis of granular polling station-level data shows that, comparing between spatially proximate areas, the BJP systematically receives more support in urban versus rural neighborhoods at the micro level. Using survey data, we discuss mechanisms behind this relationship, highlighting the emergence of a conservative middle class as well as the cultural effects of an urban environment combined with exposure to new media technologies. The findings provide evidence that long-term processes of economic modernization can unexpectedly intensify illiberal political forces, with important implications for the political future of the global south.

Dasgupta, Aditya. "Was Barrington Moore Right? Testing the Commercial Origins of Democracy". 

Abstract: One of the key historical steps towards the emergence of democratic political institutions was the transfer of political power from hereditary monarchs to elected parliaments. Why institutions evolved in this “inclusive” direction is one of the central puzzles of political science and economic history. This paper tests an influential hypothesis in the case of seventeenth-century England: that rebellion against monarchy was encouraged by the spread of commerce, especially in agriculture. The argument is formalized with a model, where rebellion becomes an equilibrium once a sufficiently large share of landowners switches from customary to market income-earning activities subject to royal extraction. The implications of the model are supported with data on the 1640 elections to the Long Parliament – a referendum on the conflict between the monarchy and parliament in the run-up to the English civil war – linked to county-level indicators of agricultural commercialization.

Dasgupta, Aditya and Ada Johnson-Kanu. "Pre-colonial States and Development: Evidence from African Agriculture". 

Abstract: Low agricultural productivity is a major source of poverty in Africa, where much of the population works in agriculture, yet subsistence production and food insecurity are widespread. However, some pockets of agriculture in Africa are highly productive. In this paper, we assemble a geospatial dataset of all pre-colonial African states in existence between 1500 and 1850, and utilize remote-sensing data based on satellite imagery to show that areas (pixels) in proximity to the location of pre-colonial state capitals display higher levels of contemporary agricultural output. This relationship exists across and within countries, agro-ecological zones, and river basins. We rule out spurious correlation with spatial randomization tests. We argue that via path-dependence and spatial agglomeration effects, pre-colonial states transmitted the territorial reach that was critical for state-led agricultural modernization in the twentieth century. The findings support a growing literature linking contemporary economic development to state capacity transmitted from pre-colonial political institutions. 

Dasgupta, Aditya. "Top Down and Bottom Up Determinants of Government Performance Across Indian Villages". 

Abstract: Why do government programs work well in some localities but poorly in others? This paper develops a theory of how the combination of top-down political connections together with bottom-up community civic engagement plays an important role in shaping the implementation of government programs across localities. The argument is developed with a simple model and applied to variation in the performance of a rural employment guarantee program across villages in India and tested with a survey of 2,250 households across 90 villages, nested within a close elections natural experiment. The data show that electing a ruling-party legislator improves household access to public works employment. However, these benefits primarily accrue to civically engaged villages, where residents subject local leaders, and by proxy the higher-level politicians to which they are connected, to broad-based pressure for service delivery. Disengaged villages are crowded out. The findings highlight the neglected but crucial role of bottom-up factors as a determinant of success in distributive politics.