Biography
Paul Collier
Sir Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College. From 1998–2003 he took a five-year Public Service leave during which he was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank. He is currently a Professeur invité at Sciences Po and a Director of the International Growth Centre.
He has written 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; urbanisation in low-income countries; private investment in African infrastructure and changing organisational cultures.
Paul has authored numerous books, including The Bottom Billion (Oxford University Press, 2007) 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; Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (Vintage Books, 2009); The Plundered Planet: How to reconcile prosperity with nature (Oxford University Press, 2010); Exodus: How migration is changing our world (Oxford University Press, 2013); and The Future of Capitalism: Facing The New Anxieties (Penguin Books, 2018).
His latest book, co-authored with John Kay, is Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism (Penguin Books, 2020).
In 2014, Paul received a knighthood for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa.
Faculty spotlight on Sir Paul Collier.
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Publications
2006
(with Stefan Dercon) The Complementarities between Poverty Reduction and Income Redistribution, Economic Development and Cultural Change.
Is Aid Oil? World Development. Why Africa Needs a Big Push, Journal of African Economies.
Why the WTO is Deadlocked and What Can be Done About it, The World Economy.
Using Aid Instruments More Coherently: Grants and Loans, in I Kaul and P. Conceicao (eds) The New Public Finance, Oxford University Press.
2007
(with Anke Hoeffler) Unintended Consequences: Does Aid Promote Arms Races? Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics.
(With Anthony Venables), Trade Preferences and African Export Diversification, The World Economy.
(With Benedikt Goderis) Prospects for Commodity Exporters: Hunky Dory or Humpty Dumpty? World Economics.
(with Anke Hoeffler) Civil War, in Hartley and Sandler, (eds.) Handbook of Defense Economics, North Holland.
The Bottom Billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it, OUP.
2008
(with Dominic Rohner) Democracy, Development and Violence, Journal of the European Economic Association.
(with A. Hoeffler and M. Soderbom) Post-Conflict Risks, Journal of Peace Research.
(with L. Chauvet) What are the preconditions for turnarounds in failing states? Journal of Conflict Management and Peace Science.
(with D. Conway and A. Venables) Climate Change: Implications for Africa, Oxford Review of Economic Policy. Poverty in Africa, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(with Chris Adam and Victor Davies) Post-Conflict Monetary Reconstruction, World Bank Economic Review. International Political Economy: Some African Applications, Journal of African Economies.
(with Charles Soludo and Cathy Pattillo, eds) Nigeria: Policies for Prosperity, Palgrave.
The Food Crisis: The Politics of Hunger, Foreign Affairs.
(with Jan Gunning, eds) Critical Readings in Globalization and Poverty, Sage Publications, 3 volumes.
(with B. Ndulu, R. Bates and S. O’Connell) The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960-2000, Cambridge University Press.
2009
(with A. Hoeffler) Testing the Neo-Con Agenda: Democracy, Growth and Resource Rents, European Economic Review.
(with Lisa Chauvet) Elections and Economic Policy in Developing Countries, Economic Policy.
(with Benedikt Goderis) Does Aid Mitigate Commodity Shocks? Review of Development Economics.
(with Anke Hoeffler and Dominic Rohner) Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War, Oxford Economic Papers.
(with Benedikt Goderis) Structural Policies for Shock-Prone Commodity Exporters, Oxford Economic Papers.
(with Michael Spence, Tony Venables and Rick van der Ploeg) Managing Resource Revenues in Developing Countries, IMF Staff Papers.
The Political Economy of Failing States, Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, HarperCollins/Random House. (with Tony Venables) Trade and Economic Performance: Does Economic Fragmentation Matter? in Lin and Plescovik (eds) Annual World Bank Conference of Development Economics, 2008, World Bank.
Post-Conflict Recovery: How should policies be distinctive? Journal of African Economies.
2010
The Plundered Planet: How to Reconcile Nature with Prosperity, OUP and Penguin.
(With Lisa Chauvet and Anke Hoeffler) Paradise Lost: Failing States in the Pacific, Journal of Development Studies.
(with Tony Venables) Illusory Revenues: Trade Policies in Resource-Rich Countries, Journal of Development Economics.
(with Tony Venables) International Rules for Trade in Natural Resources, Globalization and Development.
Conflict, Political Accountability and Aid, Routledge.
2011
(with Pedro Vicente) Violence, Bribery, and Fraud: The Political Economy of Elections in Sub-Saharan Africa, Public Choice.
(with Tony Venables, ed.) Plundered Nations? Country Experiences with Managing Natural Resources, Palgrave.
(with Chris Adam and Njuguna Ndungu, eds) Kenya: Economic Policies for Prosperity, OUP.
(with N. Ndungu), Strategies for Growth, in C.Adam, P. Collier and N. Ndungu (eds) Kenya: Economic Policies for Prosperity, OUP.
(with R. Gutierrez-Romero and M. Kimenyi) Democracy and Prosperity, in C.Adam, P. Collier and N. Ndungu (eds) Kenya: Economic Policies for Prosperity, OUP.
2012
(with B. Goderis) Growth, Governance and Natural Resources, European Economic Review.
(with Tony Venables) Land Grabs? Speculation versus Pioneer Investment, Globalization and Development.
2013
Exodus: How Migration is Changing our World, Oxford University Press.
(with S. Bhattacharyya), Public capital in resource rich economies: Is there a curse? Oxford Economic Papers 66 (1).
(with M. Duponchel) The Economic Legacy of Civil War: Firm-level Evidence from Sierra Leone, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 57: 65-88
Épargner les revenus tirés des ressources naturelles dans les pays en développement : principes et règles de politiques, Revue d'économie du développement, 2013/4 Vol. 27.
Under Pressure: How governments can manage expectations when oil is discovered, Finance and Development.
2014
(with P. Vicente), Votes and violence: Evidence from a field experiment in Nigeria, Economic Journal.
(with S. Dercon) African Agriculture in 50 Years: Smallholders in a Rapidly Changing World, World Development.
(with A. Venables), Closing Coal: Economic and Moral Incentives, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 30(3), 492-512.
The Ethics of Natural Resources, Global Ethics.
Scottish Oil and Global Justice, International Energy Law Review.
Zambian Macroeconomic Policy: a Time for Tough Decisions, in Adam, et al, Zambia: Policies for Prosperity, Oxford University Press.
Africa's New Economic Opportunities, Oxford Handbooks Online, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687114.013.2
2015
(with J. Cust) Investing in Africa’s Infrastructure: Financing and Policy Options, Annual Review of Resource Economics.
(with Anke Hoeffler) Do Elections Matter for Economic Performance? Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 77(1), 1-21
(with T. Venables), Urbanization and Housing in Africa, in J. Hannigan and G. Richards (eds), Handbook of New Urban Studies, Sage.
(with A. Venables), Closing coal: Economic and Moral Incentives, Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
Attracting International Private Finance for African Infrastructure, Journal of African Trade.
(with M. Kirchberger and M. Soderbom),The Cost of Transport Infrastructure in Developing Countries, World Bank Economic Review.
(with O.Sterck and R. Manning), The Moral and Fiscal Implications of Anti-Retroviral Therapies for HIV in Africa, CSAE Working Paper, WPS/2015-05
Development Economics in Retrospect and Prospect, Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
Attracting International Private Finance for African Infrastructure, Journal of African Trade
(with A. Betts) Help Refugees Help Themselves, Foreign Affairs
Vers une Politique du Climat Réaliste et Efficace, Economica, 2015. Chapter 29, Réduire les émissions de carbone sans freiner le développement.
(with A. Venables), Housing and Urbanization in Africa: Unleashing a Formal Housing Process, in E.Glaeser and A. Joshi-Ghani, (eds.), The Urban Imperative, Oxford University Press.
2016
The Cultural Foundations of Economic Failure: a Conceptual Toolkit, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2016), pp. 5-24.
(with J. Aker and P. Vicente), Is Information Power? Using Mobile Phones and Free Newspapers during an Election in Mozambique, Review of Economics and Statistics.
(with T. Venables) Urban Infrastructure for Development, Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
The Institutional and Psychological Foundations of Natural Resource Policies, Journal of Development Studies (May 2016) Page 1-12.
(with A. Hoeffler), Africa and the World: Sovereignty, Dependency and Extraversion. On the incidence of civil war in Africa, in N. Cheesman (ed.), African Politics, Critical Concepts in Political Science, Vol 1, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Resource Revenue Management: Three Policy Clocks, in R. Caputo and R. Chang (eds.), Commodity Prices and Macroeconomic Policy, Central Bank of Chile.
(with P. Jones), Transforming Dar es Salaam into a city that works, in Adam et al., (eds.) Tanzania: Policies for Prosperity, Oxford University Press.
(with C. Adam and B. Ndulu (eds.) Tanzania: Policies for Prosperity, Oxford University Press.
2017
Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System (with Alex Betts), Penguin/OUP.
Culture, Politics and Economic Development, Annual Review of Political Science.
The Future of Capitalism, Times Literary Supplement (cover feature article).
Refugees: Aid isn’t Working, The Spectator (cover feature article).
Africa’s Prospective Urban Transition, Journal of Demographic Economics, 83(1).
Urbanisation in Developing Countries, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2017(4), Guest Editor (with Tony Venables)
Urbanisation in Developing Countries: the Assessment, (with Tony Venables), in Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
African Urbanisation: an Analytic Policy Guide, in Oxford Review of Economic Policy.
Globalization: the Downside and What to do about it, The World Economy.
Corruption, Times Literary Supplement, July.
Europe and Refugees: Tragedy bordering on Farce, in M. Castels (Ed), Europe’s Crises.
2018
The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties, Penguin/HarperCollins
Who Gets the Urban Surplus? (with Tony Venables), Journal of Economic Geography.
The Moral and Fiscal Implications of Anti-Retroviral Therapies for HIV in Africa (with Olivier Starck), Oxford Economic Papers.
Migration to the OECD, (With Anke Hoeffler), Kylos.
The Ethical Foundations of Aid: Two Duties of Rescue, in R. Eckersley and C. Brown (eds), Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory.
The Political Barriers to Development in Africa, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politics, ed. N. Cheeseman. Shared-Use Mining Infrastructure: Why it Matters, and How to Achieve it (with Glenn Ireland and Richard Manning), Development Policy Review.
The Bottom Billion, in G. Ritzer (ed), Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology.
2019
The Political Barriers to Development in Africa, Oxford Research Encyclopedias
2020
(with John Kay) Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism, Penguin