Paul Collier

From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

Facing the New Anxieties

The Future of Capitalism

Global poverty is falling quite rapidly for about eighty percent of the world. The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty. The causes of failure include civil war, dependence on the export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work against these traps, Collier writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse. What the bottom billion need, he argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. In The Bottom Billion, Collier offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.

Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

The Bottom Billion

The best-selling author of The Bottom Billion lays out the effects of both encouraging and restricting migration.

How Migration is Changing Our World

Exodus

John Kay

Two of the UK's leading economists call for an end to extreme individualism as the engine of prosperity Throughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined. Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics. Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.

Politics After Individualism

Greed Is Dead

Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion was greeted as groundbreaking when it appeared in 2007, winning the Estoril Distinguished Book Prize, the Arthur Ross Book Award, and the Lionel Gelber Prize. The Economist wrote that it was "set to become a classic," the Financial Times praised it as "rich in both analysis and recommendations," while Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times called it the "best nonfiction book so far this year."Now, in The Plundered Planet, Collier builds upon his renowned work on developing countries and the poorest populations to confront the global mismanagement of nature. Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart, while the carbon emissions and agricultural follies of the rich world could further impoverish them. The Plundered Planet charts a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to dauntingly complex issues.Grounded in a belief in the power of informed citizens, Collier proposes a series of international standards that would help poor countries rich in natural assets better manage those resources, policy changes that would raise world food supply, and a clear-headed approach to climate change that acknowledges the benefits of industrialization while addressing the need for alternatives to carbon trading. Revealing how these are all interconnected, The Plundered Planet charts a way forward to avoid the mismanagement of the natural world that threatens our future.

Why We Must--and How We Can--Manage Nature for Global Prosperity

The Plundered Planet:Why We Must--and How We Can--Manage Nature for Global Prosperity

In this acclaimed and award-winning work, Collier shines much-needed light on a group of small nations--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--that pose the central challenge of the developing world in the 21st century.

Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and what Can be Done about it

الهجرة 

democracy in dangerous places

Wars, guns, and votes

Alexander Betts

'Betts and Collier offer innovative insights into how to more effectively meet this challenge, with an important new focus on international solidarity and refugee empowerment' Kofi Annan 'Refugees and policy makers need practical answers to what is now a global crisis. This valuable book represents the kind of can-do thinking that we need to see' David Miliband An eye-opening account of the migrant crisis which shows why our global refugee regime is broken and how it can be fixed Europe is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, yet the institutions responding to it remain virtually unchanged from those created in the post-war era. As neighbouring countries continue to bear the brunt of the Syrian catastrophe, European governments have enacted a series of ill-considered gestures, from shutting their borders to welcoming refugees without a plan for their safe passage or integration upon arrival. With a deepening crisis and a xenophobic backlash in Europe, it is time for a new vision for refuge. Going beyond the scenes of desperation which have become all too familiar in the past few years, Alexander Betts and Paul Collier show that this crisis offers an opportunity for reform if international policy-makers focus on delivering humane, effective and sustainable outcomes - both for Europe and for countries that border conflict zones. Refugees need more than simply food, tents and blankets, and research demonstrates that they can offer tangible economic benefits to their adopted countries if given the right to work and education. An urgent and necessary work, Refuge sets out an alternative vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and even rebuild their countries of origin.

Transforming a Broken Refugee System

Refuge

Global refugee numbers are at their highest levels since the end of World War II, but the system in place to deal with them, based upon a humanitarian list of imagined "basic needs," has changed little. In Refuge, Paul Collier and Alexander Betts argue that the system fails to provide a comprehensive solution to the fundamental problem, which is how to reintegrate displaced people into society. Western countries deliver food, clothing, and shelter to refugee camps, but these sites, usually located in remote border locations, can make things worse. The numbers are stark: the average length of stay in a refugee camp worldwide is 17 years. Into this situation comes the Syria crisis, which has dislocated countless families, bringing them to face an impossible choice: huddle in dangerous urban desolation, rot in dilapidated camps, or flee across the Mediterranean to increasingly unwelcoming governments. Refuge seeks to restore moral purpose and clarity to refugee policy. Rather than assuming indefinite dependency, Collier-author of The Bottom Billion-and his Oxford colleague Betts propose a humanitarian approach integrated with a new economic agenda that begins with jobs, restores autonomy, and rebuilds people's ability to help themselves and their societies. Timely and urgent, the book goes beyond decrying scenes of desperation to declare what so many people, policymakers and public alike, are anxious to hear: that a long-term solution really is within reach.

Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World

The world is in a mess. For more than a billion people, everyday life is played out against the backdrop of civil wars, military coups and failing economies. For them, the peaceful democracy taken for granted in the West seems an impossible pipe-dream. But solutions do exist - it is up to us to achieve them. Award-winning academic Paul Collier's vision for the future of the developing world is eye-opening, provocative and refreshingly unequivocal.

Democracy in Dangerous Places

Wars, Guns and Votes

"Immigration has become the great divisive issue of our times. In Refuge, Paul Collier and Alexander Betts set out a policy vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and ultimately rebuild their countries of origin"--

Qué falla en los países más pobres del mundo

El club de la miseria

Hoe migratie onze wereld verandert Nooit eerder waren jonge mensen in arme landen zich zo bewust van de mogelijkheden buiten hun eigen land. Het gevolg is migratie op grote schaal, waardoor zelfs hele landen ontvolkt kunnen raken. In de gastlanden wonen mensen van allerlei nationaliteiten, die niet integreren. De bevolking van de emigratielanden raakt verspreid en het zwaartepunt van hun economische activiteit ligt vaak buiten hun land van oorsprong. Exodus zal veel discussie opleveren Paul Collier neemt een prikkelende stelling in. Hij bepleit dat nationale grenzen alleen binnen strenge regels overschreden kunnen worden. Exodus presenteert ethische en legitieme redenen om migratie te beperken, in het belang van zowel de samenleving in de gastlanden als in de migratielanden. Collier onderbouwt zijn betoog met de verhalen van mensen die achterbleven, van mensen die emigreerden naar nieuwe landen en van degenen die het effect van migranten in hun eigen maatschappij ondervinden. Paul Collier is hoogleraar Economie in Oxford en was directeur ontwikkelingsonderzoek van de Wereldbank. Hij was topadviseur over Afrika voor Tony Blair en wordt regelmatig door verschillende wereldleiders om advies gevraagd over de armoedeproblematiek.

Nicholas Sambanis

Annotation VOLUME I: Africa VOLUME II: Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions (volumes sold separately) "This is a superb manuscript, and one that will become a standard reference in the field for students of conflict and civil war." Robert Bates, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University The two volumes of Understanding Civil War build upon the World Bank's prior research on conflict and violence, particularly on the work of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, whose model of civil war onset has sparked much discussion on the relationship between conflict and development in what came to be known as the "greed" versus "grievance" debate. The authors systematically apply the Collier-Hoeffler model to 15 countries in 6 different regions of the world, using a comparative case study methodology to revise and expand upon economic models of civil war. The book concludes that the "greed" versus "grievance" debate should be abandoned for a more complex model that considers greed and grievance as inextricably fused motives for civil war. regions of Somalia. Conflict in Somalia examines the results of the study and offers recommendations for reconstruction and development assistance that takes the knowledge on conflict into account.

Understanding Civil War: Europe, Central Asia, and other regions

Christopher Adam

Njuguna Ndung'u

This is the first volume in a new series Africa: Policies for Prosperity. For the first time in more than a generation, sustained economic growth has been achieved across the continent - despite the downturn in global economic fortunes since 2008 - and in many countries these gains have been realized through policy reforms driven by the decisive leadership of a new generation of economic policymakers. The process of reform is continuous, however, and the challenge currently facing this new generation is how to harness these favourable gains in macroeconomic stability and turn them into a coherent strategy for sustainable growth and poverty reduction over the coming decades. These challenges are substantial and encompass the broad remit of economic policy. Each volume in this series brings leading scholars into the policy arena to examine these challenges and to lay out, in a rigorous but accessible manner, key challenges and policy options facing policymakers on the continent. This first volume on Kenya explores the challenges facing an economy standing at a crossroads. Kenya has experienced a period of high and sustained growth since the mid 1990s, growth which involved economic transformation away from a heavy reliance on traditional economic activities towards an emerging manufacturing economy. But this process, and the economic and social stability that had come to characterize Kenya, have been severely tested by the post-election violence of 2008. Restoring equitable growth and sustaining the structural transformation of the economy is essential if Kenya is to leave this dark period behind. The chapters in this volume address the key issues that will face economic policy makers in the coming years. They cover the conventional but central question of finance and macroeconomic management, but also much deeper structural issues of trade, employment generation and education; of land policy, migration and urbanization; and the fiscal challenges facing an ageing but increasingly urbanized (and increasingly affluent) society.

Policies for Prosperity

Kenya : Policies for Prosperity

Changing many apparently gender -neutral public policies will make women a more productive part of the economy -- and allow them a more equitable share of its benefits -- in some not-so-obvious ways.

Defining the Issues

Women in Development

Anke Hoeffler

Aid, Policy, and Growth in Post-conflict Societies

Mn?s Söderbom

The duration of large-scale violent civil conflict increases substantially if the society is composed of a few large ethnic groups, if there is extensive forest cover, and if the conflict has commenced since 1980. None of these factors affect the initiation of conflict. And neither the duration nor the initiation of conflict is affected by initial inequality or political repression.

Paul Collier

About

Books

Join the club