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Knowledge and divergence from the perspective of early modern India

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  • Roy, Tirthankar

Abstract

This article explores the origins of divergent technological pathways in the early modern world, and the role that artisanal knowledge played in this process. It rejects older explanations based on societal differences in entrepreneurial propensities and incentives, and a more modern one based on factor cost. It argues instead for the importance of conditions that facilitated transactions between complementary skills. In India, the institutional setting within which artisan techniques were learned had made such transactions less likely than in eighteenth-century Europe. The cost of acquiring knowledge, therefore, was relatively high in India.

Suggested Citation

  • Roy, Tirthankar, 2008. "Knowledge and divergence from the perspective of early modern India," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 361-387, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jglhis:v:3:y:2008:i:03:p:361-387_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Tirthankar Roy, 2009. "Did globalisation aid industrial development in colonial India? A study of knowledge transfer in the iron industry," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 46(4), pages 579-613, October.
    2. Osamu Saito, 2015. "Growth and inequality in the great and little divergence debate: a Japanese perspective," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 399-419, May.

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