Economists crowdsource AI digitization of India's district handbooks, 1951–2011
paulnovosad · x · 2026-11-09
Development economist Paul Novosad's DDL lab launched a new project to crowdsource India's economic history: collecting district handbooks from c.1951–2011, digitizing all their tables, and harmonizing districts, variables and villages over time.
The goal is a village/town-level panel dataset spanning independence to the present, rich in both quantitative and qualitative data. The team notes this was nearly impossible before, but is now feasible with AI — and they're inviting contributors to help.
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