Anand V. Swamy of Williams College reviews “India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today” by Ashoka Mody. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Presents a narrative of the modern history of India from the perspectives of successive Indian leaders, chronicling the erosion of social norms and decay of political accountability from 1947 to 2021 that have detrimentally affected the country's economy and political system.”

Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company (EIC) operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress two difficulties: the exporter and its agents might not uphold payment agreements, and producers might not honor sales contracts. The model shows when procurement succeeds or fails, highlighting the tension between these two hold-up problems. We analyze several cases, including the EIC's cotton textile venture, the famous Opium Monopoly, and present-day contract farming.