Data

Below are datasets I've compiled either for fun or over the course of research projects.

Historical Indian NSDP Data by State

Many Indian states have populations larger than most countries worldwide. However, in my experience, easily usable open-source data on economic output by state over time can be surprisingly difficult to find. In an effort to understand spatial differences in economic growth across India, I collated a number of publicly-available datasets to produce estimates of real per capita net state domestic product (NSDP) in 2023 Indian rupees by state and year from 1960 to 2023. I have posted an Excel file with these estimates below for anyone who wants to use them for research purposes:

Real NSDP per capita by state

Please credit me if you use the data and share if you make any improvements. These data have not undergone any sort of peer review or professional quality checking procedures (this was more of a side project for me), so please don't hold me liable for any mistakes! For anyone who is curious, I have written up a brief note on methodology here.

One takeaway I had once I put together all the data was that different regions of India appear to have grown at markedly different rates over the last ~60 years. Furthermore, these relative growth rates have shifted over time. I divided the country into six broad geographic regions, each averaging a population of 230 million people, and then computed the compound annual real per capita NSDP growth rate over 1960-1991 and 1991-2023. (The year 1991 serves as a natural cutoff point because it is right around the midpoint between the first and last years of data I had at my disposal, and also because substantial economic reforms were introduced that year.)

A few patterns are apparent from the figures below. These aren't necessarily original observations, but hopefully still worth a short summary. First, India's average rate of per capita NSDP was sluggish over 1960-1991, standing at just 1.8% a year. Growth picked up post-1991, increasing to a 4.6% annual rate. 

Second, the regional distribution of growth shifted in striking ways. Pre-1991, growth was concentrated in the far northern part of the country, which benefited most from the Green Revolution. North India grew at nearly 3% a year, which is still low relative to the post-1991 Indian average but close to double the country's pre-1991 average. The rest of the country barely managed 2% a year or, in the case of East India (primarily West Bengal and Orissa) and North Central India (primarily Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), barely 1% a year. 

Post-1991, growth picked up in every region, but to different degrees. Over the past three decades, South India has grown at a notably faster rate than the rest of the country — nearly 6% a year, which is not that far off China's (officially reported) GDP growth of 8.3% a year over that period. By contrast, the growth rate in North Central India was barely half that amount, or about 2.6 percentage points lower each year for over 30 years. The rest of the country, including the former standout far northern region, grew at about 4.5% a year  — right around the national average.

According to the World Bank, India's GDP per capita was $2240 in 2023. If the entire country had hypothetically grown at the same rate as South India from 1991 to 2023, India's GDP per capita would have been $3380 in 2023 — or 50% higher than it actually was! India would be fairly close to Indonesia's GDP per person today, even though it started from a far lower base in 1991. By contrast, if all of India had grown at the same rate as the North Central region, national GDP per capita would have been $1520 in 2023 — still a impressive 2.9x increase compared to 1991, but a third less than the actual figure today.  

A few more hypotheticals to conclude. If the entire country had grown at East India's pre-1991 rate over the entire 1960-2023 period, India's GDP per capita would be just $630 in 2023 — putting its income per person on par with very low-income nations like Chad and Sierra Leone. By contrast, if the whole country had managed to sustain North India's growth rate across 1960-1991 and then South India's growth rate across 1991-2023, then India's per capita GDP would stand at $4815, placing it solidly above countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. 

In short, there's so much to learn from the particular stories of development even within one (albeit large) country. Sustained, inclusive growth matters so much for individual opportunity and well-being, and understanding the details of why some places have been able to grow and why some have not — even holding numerous national institutions constant — is a fascinating area of study (one in which many researchers have made tremendous contributions). 

Additional graphs showing per capita GDP by region in 1960, 1991, and 2023

Indian Districts by Land Area

I found it difficult to find a single up-to-date dataset on land area by district in India, so I scraped the OpenStreetMap Wiki to collate these data. The dataset below contains the official land area and OpenStreetMap land area of each district in India. 

District land area data

Historical Locations of Television Transmitters in India

Television came relatively late to India, with the large-scale rollout of transmitter infrastructure not occurring until the mid-1980s. Funded by the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), in 2023 I collected information on the commission date and location of television transmitters in India as of 1987 from government archives. The dataset I compiled is available for download below. Please credit me if you use the data and share if you make any improvements. 

Transmitter location data