Bishnupriya Gupta
Indian-British economic historian, professor at the University of Warwick. Trained at the Delhi School of Economics and Cambridge. The principal modern collaborator with Stephen Broadberry on the long-run reconstruction of Indian GDP and the comparative-Asian-economic-history project that has reset the empirical baseline of the Great Divergence debate.
Intellectual program
Section titled “Intellectual program”Gupta’s signature contribution is the multi-decade reconstruction of Indian long-run GDP per capita and wages, conducted primarily with Broadberry. The Broadberry-Custodis-Gupta 2015 Indian GDP series (covering 1600–1871) was the first systematic historical-national-accounting reconstruction of the Indian economy at this time horizon, and it has been the empirical anchor for the Great-Divergence-side of the debate about Indian economic decline under EIC and Crown rule. Subsequent papers have refined the reconstruction and extended the methodology to specific sectoral and regional analyses.
Gupta’s broader research program covers comparative South Asian economic history, Indian Ocean trade, and the colonial-period transformation of Indian economic structures. The work on Lancashire-vs-Bengal cotton textile productivity (Broadberry-Gupta 2009 Economic History Review “Lancashire, India, and Shifting Competitive Advantage in Cotton Textiles, 1700–1850”) is a particularly influential single paper, documenting the productivity gap that emerged across the 18th–19th centuries between Indian and British cotton production.
Reception
Section titled “Reception”Gupta’s collaborative work with Broadberry is the field’s standard reference for Indian long-run GDP and is part of the empirical foundation of the Broadberry-school revisionist case against strong-form California-school parity claims. Within South Asian economic history specifically, her work is widely cited and broadly accepted as setting the modern empirical bar.
Associated positions
Section titled “Associated positions”- Meta: when and how big? (GD) — central voice in the parity-vs-revisionist meta-debate; her Indian GDP series is part of the empirical case.
- Empire & coerced extraction (GD) — the Indian decline her data documents is the principal empirical anchor for the GD-scale Williams-revival case.
- The Industrial Revolution (IR) — Lancashire-vs-Bengal cotton-textile-productivity comparisons bear on the IR competitive-advantage story.
Key works
Section titled “Key works”- With Stephen Broadberry: “Lancashire, India, and Shifting Competitive Advantage in Cotton Textiles, 1700–1850: The Neglected Role of Factor Prices” (Economic History Review, 2009).
- With Stephen Broadberry and Johann Custodis: “India and the Great Divergence: An Anglo-Indian Comparison of GDP per Capita, 1600–1871” (Explorations in Economic History, 2015).
- With Tirthankar Roy: extensive work on colonial-and-modern Indian economic history.
- Numerous papers on South Asian economic history and on global comparative economic history.