This dataset supports a study on the effect of railroads on human capital in colonial India. The analysis uses district-level data on literacy, including male and English literacy, to examine the impact of railroad development on schooling and economic mechanisms.
Use Cases
- Analyze the relationship between railroad development and district-level literacy rates.
- Investigate the differential impact of railroads on male literacy versus English literacy.
- Study the mediating effects of non-agricultural income and urbanization on literacy outcomes.
- Examine how railroad expansion influenced secondary and elite primary schooling versus vernacular primary schooling.
Strengths
- Dataset is associated with a study employing two different identification strategies for causal inference.
- Focuses on a major historical public investment, the colonial Indian railroad network.
- Analysis includes mediation mechanisms such as non-agricultural income and urbanization.
Limitations
- The specific column names, row count, and data structure are unknown.
- Data is historical and focused on a colonial period, limiting contemporary applicability.
- Geographic coverage is limited to districts in colonial India.
Provenance
- Source
- ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- null
- Time Range
- Colonial India period
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Colonial India, district-level