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 enlarge | Author: Paul Collier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy Used: $11.10
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New (59) Used (31) from $11.10
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 19477
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0195311450
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.90091724
EAN: 9780195311457
ASIN: 0195311450
Publication Date: April 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some yellow highlights, book otherwise appears basically new!!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent Book Should Be Read By Everyone Concerned with Poverty June 27, 2008
Collier is a serious scholar in the world of development and here he has written a very important book. Here is the basic argument - while it sucks to be poor in countries like India, India is heading for relative prosperity. Where is really, really sucks to be poor is in a number of countries, concentrated in Africa where there is little hope of breaking out of a cycle of severe poverty. Collier pinpoints four ways in which these countries stay at the bottom - (1) they are racked by civil wars; (2) they're rich in a specific natural resource which stifles economic group in other areas; (3) they are surrounded by awful neighbors; and/or (4) they are a small country which is consistently horrifically governed. Collier proposes a number of concrete steps to deal with some of these problems, steps which I find to be realistic if perhaps politically unlikely at times. For example, Collier is totally in support of military intervention, of course he thinks there is a right way and wrong way to do it, but still, you're not hearing Jeff Sachs talk about sending in guns to cure poverty and with the disaster that has been the Iraq war, I think it will be a long time before the developed world is interested in dangerous humanitarian missions.
This is the book of a man who has spent a long time in world of bureaucracies whose mandate is to fight poverty, and some of Collier's ideas are a bit gun-ho in reaction to what he rightly thinks is a lack of will power from the developed world. I don't think all of his ideas are good ones, and many of them I think are unlikely given the developed world's current lack of commitment to fighting poverty, but if you have any interest in development and poverty reduction you have to read this book.
 Will stimulate your thinking June 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love books like this. I am not a development expert not involved in international business nor government. Just a average middle class guy who tries to think beyond the bounds of my little world.
Can't argue whether anything he put on these pages is wrong or right. It's engaging writing and I often found myself pausing to ponder some point Collier makes. All-in-all, a great read.
One additional note: The first chapter is very wonkish...lots of statistics and figures. It may put you off and keep you from reading further....if so just skip to Chapter 3. You can still get the gist of Collier's argument.
Bottom Billion- They can be helped! June 22, 2008
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
Paul Collier wrote this book with all the facts on the table.
He understands what he is talking about. As an African I couldn't agree more
with what he wrote. He has laid out the 4 major traps that poor countries(countries with slow growing economies) are faced with.Paul Collier states that these four traps are:
-The Conflict trap
-The Natural Resource trap
- Being Landlocked with Bad Neighbours
- and Bad Governance in a small country
He goes on to explain how poor states can be helped out of these traps.This is a great book that everyone who cares about the poor must own. It offers strong solutions that the world community must take seriously and work hard to implement. This book was well researched for. Great Book.Great work Paul Collier. I'd forever keep this book.
Very Interesting May 26, 2008
Recommend this book to anyone who ponders the fate of the poorest countries of the world. Some very interesting theories and anecdotes about how they came to be that way.
All well argued and easy to read for the layman.
And 50% cheaper via Amazon compared to ordering it via my local bookstore !
 Plausible, but . . . May 26, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Economic growth is a complicated business. Too many people focus on single issues, as though you just have to flip a switch to create wealth. You won't find any single-factor-theories here! No sir, this is my new, improved, patented, unique, four-factor theory! Step right up folks, it won't last long!
Cheap sarcasm aside, four is better than one. The four factors Collier alludes to are conflict, resources, geography and governance. A fairly standard list, but he is more careful and nuanced than most in analysing what really matters in each case and the interactions between them. Briefly:
1. Conflict (both civil war and coups): while low income and growth and dependence on primary exports are good predictors, inequality and repression are not. Ethnic diversity can be a problem, but only in the particular case where there is a clear majority group but still significant minorities. Highly diverse countries are therefore as well off as homogenous ones. There is no special "Africa effect" once other factors are accounted for. In one study from Nigeria, fighters tend to be young, uneducated and with no dependents. Having a sense of grievance does not matter. Conflict areas tend to be those with few oil wells (rather than none or many), with no relationship with the level of government services in the region. Most ominously, there does appear to be a trap: once conflict happens once, it makes future conflict more likely.
2. Resources: The resource curse does operate, through the standard channels of Dutch disease, volatility, and kleptocracy. But it is dependent on bad governance. If a country has a working democracy with checks and balances before resource wealth is discovered, there is no problem. But if these institutions do not exist, things get worse.
3. Geography: It matters - being landlocked is bad - but again this is not a homogeneous effect. It depends on having bad neighbors: too poor to be good markets themselves, and with expensive and unreliable transport to the rest of the world. Thus central Africa and Asia are in trouble, while Switzerland prospers.
4. Governance: bad governance seems to be a problem mostly when other things go wrong, and seems to be easier to fix right after a war. A larger, more educated population also helps. Sadly, democracy is no guarantee.
When it comes to help, aid is better for growth than oil. All those expensive bureaucracies apparently do some good in screening out the very worst projects. Collier also emphasises the crucial elements of timing after a crisis: technical assistance first, then cash.
All of this sounds nice and reasonable, but so did a lot of things that turned out to be nonsense. The great flaw of this book is the lack of references. There is literally no bibliography. The only link to more information is Collier's website, and a list of his papers (without links). It is hugely arrogant to proclaim that "my image smasher is statistical evidence", write a book without any references to other's work, and then expect people to take all of your work on faith.
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