Engines of Growth: The Productivity Advance of Indian Railways,”

Abstract Railways were integral to the development of the Indian economy before World War I. In this paper, we present new estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) for railways from 1874 to 1912, which highlight the strong performance of this key industrial sector. We find railway-industry TFP growth to be substantial, averaging 2.6 percent per year and generating a 3 percent social savings for the Indian economy. A combination of factors contributed to TFP growth including greater capacity utilization, technological change, and improvements in organization and governance. The larger conclusion is that railways had higher TFP growth than most sectors in India and compared favorably with TFP growth for railways in other countries