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Sir Paul Collier, (born 23 April 1949) is a
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
development economist who serves as the Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the
Blavatnik School of Government The Blavatnik School of Government is a school of public policy founded in 2010 at the University of Oxford in England. The School was founded following a £75 million donation from a business magnate Leonard Blavatnik, supported by £26 million ...
and the director of the International Growth Centre. He currently is a Professeur invité at Sciences Po and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has served as a senior advisor to the Blair Commission for Africa and was the Director of the Development Research Group at the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
between 1998 and 2003.


Early life and education

Collier was born on 23 April 1949. Collier’s great-grandfather, Karl Hellenschmidt, was a German immigrant to the UK. During World War I, Collier’s grandfather, Karl Hellenschmidt Jr, changed his surname from Hellenschmidt to Collier. Collier was brought up in
Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
where he attended King Edward VII School and studied PPE at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
.


Academic career

He was a founder of the
Centre for the Study of African Economies ThCentre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE)has been researching economic and social development in Africa since 1986. These days, a large team of development economists research not only countries in Africa, but also in other developing ar ...
and remained its Director from 1989 until 2014. From 1998 until 2003 he was the director of the Development Research Group of the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
. In 2010 and 2011, he was named by '' Foreign Policy'' magazine on its list of top global thinkers. Collier currently serves on the advisory board of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP). Collier is a specialist in the political, economic and developmental predicaments of low-income countries. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural resources rich societies; urbanization in low-income countries; private investment in African infrastructure and changing organizational cultures. In 1988 he was awarded the ''Edgar Graham Book Prize'' for the co-written ''Labour and poverty in rural
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
:
Ujamaa Ujamaa ( in Swahili) was a socialist ideology that formed the basis of Julius Nyerere's social and economic development policies in Tanzania after it gained independence from Britain in 1961. More broadly, ujamaa may mean "cooperative economic ...
and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania''. ''
The Bottom Billion ''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'' is a 2007 book by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University, exploring the reasons why impoverished countries fail to progress despite inte ...
: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'' (), has been compared to
Jeffrey Sachs Jeffrey David Sachs () (born 5 November 1954) is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst, and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor. He is known for his work ...
's ''
The End of Poverty ''The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time'' () is a 2005 book by American economist Jeffrey Sachs. It was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. In the book, Sachs argues that extreme poverty—defined by the World Bank as incomes of ...
'' and
William Easterly William Russell Easterly (born September 7, 1957) is an American economist, specializing in economic development. He is a professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU’s Development Research Inst ...
's ''The White Man's Burden'', two influential books, which like Collier's book, discuss the pros and cons of
development aid Development aid is a type of foreign/international/overseas aid given by governments and other agencies to support the economic, environmental, social, and political development of developing countries. Closely-related concepts include: develop ...
to developing countries. His 2010 book ''The Plundered Planet'' is encapsulated in his formulas: ::Nature – Technology + Regulation = Starvation ::Nature + Technology – Regulation = Plunder ::Nature + Technology + Regulation (
Good governance Good governance is the process of measuring how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources and guarantee the realization of human rights in a manner essentially free of abuse and corruption and with due regard for th ...
) = Prosperity The book describes itself as an attempt at a middle way between the
extremism Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...
of "Ostriches" (
denialism In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to denial, deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical expe ...
, particularly climate change denial) and "Environmental Romanticism" (for example, anti-
genetically modified organisms A genetically modified organism (GMO) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The exact definition of a genetically modified organism and what constitutes genetic engineering varies, with ...
movements in Europe). The book is about sustainable management in relation with the geo-
politics of global warming The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuel ...
, with an attempt to avoid a global
tragedy of the commons Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ...
, with the prime example of overfishing. In it he builds upon a legacy of the economic psychology of greed and fear, from early
Utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...
(
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
) to more recently the
Stern Review The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released for the Government of the United Kingdom on 30 October 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environm ...
.


Honours

Collier was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(CBE) in the
2008 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 2008 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's Of ...
and knighted in the 2014
New Year Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...
for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa. In November 2014, Collier was awarded the President's Medal by the
British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...
, for "his pioneering contribution in bringing ideas from research in to policy within the field of African economics." In July 2017, Collier was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's
national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with State (polity), state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but ...
for the humanities and social sciences.


Work


Books

* ''Labour and Poverty in Rural Tanzania: Ujamaa and Rural Development in the United Republic of Tanzania'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, New York, 1991 . * ''
The Bottom Billion ''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'' is a 2007 book by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University, exploring the reasons why impoverished countries fail to progress despite inte ...
: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It'', Oxford University Press, 2007 . * ''Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places'', Harper, March 2009 . * ''The Plundered Planet: Why We Must, and How We Can, Manage Nature for Global Prosperity'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2010 . * ''Plundered Nations?: Successes and Failures in Natural Resource Extraction'' co-edited with Anthony J. Venables, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2011 . * '' Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, October 2013 . * ''Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World'' with Alexander Betts,
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, September 2017 . * ''The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties'', Allen Lane, April 2018 . * ''Greed Is Dead: Politics After Individualism'' with John Kay, July 2020 978-0241467954


Selected articles

* (with Anke Hoeffler) 'On economic causes of civil war' ''Oxford Economic Papers'', vol 50 issue 4, 1998, pp. 563–573. *(with V. L. Elliott, Håvard Hegre, Anke Hoeffler, Marta Reynal-Querol, Nicholas Sambanis
'Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy'
"World Bank Policy Research Report," 2003. * (with Anke Hoeffler) 'Greed and grievance in civil war' ''Oxford Economic Papers'', vol 56 issue 4, 2004, pp. 563–595. * (with Lisa Chauvet and Haavard Hegre) 'The Security Challenge in Conflict-Prone Countries',
Copenhagen Consensus Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics, using cost–benefit analysis. It was conceived and organized around 2004 by Bjørn Lo ...
2008 Challenge Paper, 2008.


Video


The Royal Economic Society's 2006 Annual Public Lecture
by Collier at the (
Royal Economic Society The Royal Economic Society (RES) is a professional association that promotes the study of economic science in academia, government service, banking, industry, and public affairs. Originally established in 1890 as the British Economic Association, ...
)
Interview with Fareed Zakaria on Foreign Exchange

TED Conference, Paul Collier on "The Bottom Billion"


* ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0t4uq-gpUA Why social science should integrate culture and how to do it? at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, January 2017


Press


Review of The Plundered Planet
by the
Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

Review of the Bottom Billion by the Financial Times


* [http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/grove150808.html Samuel Grove, "The Bottom of the Barrel: A Review of Paul Collier's ''The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It''."]


See also

* Environmental politics


References


External links


Paul Collier's home page at the Blavatnik School of Government


* ttp://writerinterviews.blogspot.com/2007/08/paul-collier.html Interview with Paul Collier by J. Tyler Dickovick
Interview with the ''Oxonian Review'' in March 2009

Video of recent talk at Oxford University – "The Bottom Billion"
* *
TED Talks: Paul Collier: The "bottom billion" (TED2008)
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Collier, Paul 1949 births British economists Climate economists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Development specialists Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford Knights Bachelor Living people People educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield Sustainability advocates Recipients of the President's Medal (British Academy) Fellows of the British Academy British people of German descent