Suspended in 2025/26
EH404 Half Unit
India and the World Economy
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Tirthankar Roy
Availability
This course is available on the CEMS Exchange, MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MA in Modern History, MBA Exchange, MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in Financial History, MSc in Global Economic History, MSc in International and Asian History, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia) and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All Economic History courses are controlled access and capped. Priority will be given to students for whom the course is within their programme regulations.
All course choices submitted before the deadline will be considered. It is advisable that students submit a statement in support of their course choices as these will be used to allocate places where a course is oversubscribed.
Deadline for application: First round offers will be sent on Monday 29 September 2025. Students who submit their course choices after the deadline and students wishing to take an Economic History course as an outside option will be waitlisted initially and informed by Wednesday 1 October 2025 whether they have been successful.
Once an offer has been sent, you have 48 hours to accept it before it times out. Once an offer has timed out, it will be re-allocated to someone on the waitlist. In all cases, it is strongly advised that you have an alternative course choice as a back-up in case you are unable to secure your first choice.
For queries contact: If you have any questions, please contact the MSc Programmes Officer (o.harrison1@lse.ac.uk)
A list of all taught master's courses in this Department are listed on LSE's course guide webpages. Guidance on how to apply to individual controlled access courses can also be found on LSE for You.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). In previous years we have been able to provide places for all students that apply, but that may not continue to be the case.
Course content
From the eighteenth century, the South Asia region played an important part in international transactions in goods, people, and money. The world economy, in turn, shaped potentials for economic growth in the region. The aim of the course is to impart an understanding of the global factors that shaped economic change in the South Asia region in the 18th through the early-20th century. It will also deal with the principal ways in which South Asia contributed to economic change in the rest of the world. The political context of globalization, especially imperialism and colonial policies, will be considered. The course will be divided into a set of topics, which together cover a large ground, but a selection from which will be discussed in the class. Lectures and seminars will centre on the readings assigned to each topic.
Topics to be covered: Introductory: India and the world economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - how each shaped the other; textiles in eighteenth century India: scale - organization - impact on global consumption and innovation - trade and territorial politics; nineteenth century market integration: de-industrialization and the artisans; nineteenth century market integration: Agricultural exports, land rights, and the peasantry - Trade and famines; Government finance in colonial setting: The drain controversy - public debt; overseas migration in the nineteenth century: Who went where, how many, and why - private gains and losses - social effects: slavery and indenture, women, nature of work and skill-formation - labour and non-labour migrants compared; foreign capital and industrialization; balance of payments and the monetary system; overview: Globalization and economic growth.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 20 hours across Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Students are expected to write one essay or equivalent pieces of written work.
Indicative reading
- G. Balachandran, ed., India and the World Economy 1850-1950 (2003);
- C. Bates and M. Carter, ‘Sirdars as Intermediaries in Nineteenth-century Indian Ocean Indentured Labour Migration,’ Modern Asian Studies (2017);
- L. Chaudhary, B. Gupta, T. Roy and A. Swamy, eds, A New Economic History of Colonial India (2015);
- D. Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India: Artisans, Merchants and the Making of the Informal Economy 1870-1960 (2012);
- P. Marshall, ed., The Eighteenth Century in Indian History ( 2004);
- T. Roy, A Business History of India: Enterprise and the Emergence of Capitalism 1700-2015 (2018).
Assessment
Essay (100%, 4000 words)
Key facts
Department: Economic History
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 13
Average class size 2024/25: 13
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.