Paul Collier
Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University. He took a five year Public Service leave, 1998-2003, during which he was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank. In 2008 Paul was awarded a CBE ‘for services to scholarship and development’. He is the author of 'The Bottom Billion', which in 2008 won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine prizes and in May 2009 was the joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book prize. His latest book, 'Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places' was published in March 2009. Paul is currently Advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the IMF, advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank; and he has advised the British Government on its recent White Paper on economic development policy. He writes a monthly column for the Guardian, and also writes for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. 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.
The Case for Public Investment
The fiscal crises now besetting several OECD countries risk replaying the long agony of over-indebtedness in Africa. In Africa the process was directly overseen by the IMF. Its model of debt sustainability implicitly assumed that public investment was entirely unproductive: this was the implication of the absence from the model of any link between public [...]
What Can the European Union do for Development?
The European Commission’s Development Directorate has a fresh team in charge: a new Commissioner and a new Director General. What should be their priorities? The Commission writes big cheques: its aid budget makes it one of the largest donors. Yet aid is not the Commission’s comparative advantage. It accounts for only around a fifth of [...]
Africa’s Window of Opportunity
Just when Europe’s economic future has deteriorated Africa’s is looking more promising than for many decades. That promise is underpinned by global commodity prices, high despite the world recession, and by years of gradual reforms. The revenues from resource extraction are going to increase massively. This is because Africa is the last frontier for resource [...]
How to Reassure Markets Without Slashing Fiscal Deficits
Having spent the past few months denying reality, Europe’s governments are now facing it in the unpleasant form of a loss of confidence in their bonds. For centuries the standard problem for bond markets has been to distinguish between prudent and imprudent governments. I want to suggest how governments can now restore confidence in a [...]
Hope in Haiti
The post-earthquake situation in Haiti has been recognised as being analogous to post-conflict, and donors have been appropriately generous. Between them, the European Union, the US, and other donors have pledged a sum approaching 7 billion euros to fund reconstruction, the single largest contribution coming from the EU. The international response is important, even beyond [...]
How to Really Help Africa
Despite the enlargement of the G8 to the G20, Europe remains its largest presence. In November France will host the G20 meeting, and so Europe will have the predominant influence on the agenda. While Africa is permanently on the agenda, the question is how we might best use that moment to do something for our [...]
The Eurozone Problem – Learning from Africa
In the debate about Greece and the Eurozone analogies have been drawn with various other currency unions, but the most significant has gone unnoticed. The Franc Zone has been linked to the European currencies for over sixty years. The relationship between the French Treasury and the governments of Francophone Africa displays many of the structural [...]
Assessment System Required to Ensure Aid Makes a Real Difference
How should aid be provided? Aid appears to be at its best when it is designated to finance beneficial projects. If aid finances a school or a health clinic then surely it is useful. Unfortunately, this is often an illusion for the simple reason that such projects may well have been undertaken by the government [...]
New Development Commissioner has his Work cut out
News of the appointments in the new European Commission has been dominated by the political struggles for the high-profile positions. The portfolio responsible for the Commission’s development program in poor countries is decidedly not one of them. The Financial Times, reporting on the appointment of Andris Piebalgs to the post, suggested that he deserved better. [...]
The new European Commission needs to use its Experience to stabilise fragile States
In the face of the political and military deterioration in Afghanistan international ambitions have been radically scaled back. The initial intent was to turn Afghanistan swiftly into a replica of a Western democracy. The new objective is to settle for any government that blocks terrorism. State-building has been abandoned both because it is evidently difficult, [...]
Who will run the World?
The tectonic plates of the global economy are beginning to settle into a new alignment. At Pittsburgh it was announced that henceforth the G20 would replace the G8. At Istanbul, where I have just been, Stanley Fischer, currently Governor of the Central Bank of Israel and hugely influential, used the Annual Meetings of the IMF [...]
