The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It [Paperback]

Paul Collier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2008

In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards. A struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders--and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions. Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.


"Set to become a classic. Crammed with statistical nuggets and common sense, his book should be compulsory reading."
--The Economist

"If Sachs seems too saintly and Easterly too cynical, then Collier is the authentic old Africa hand: he knows the terrain and has a keen ear.... If you've ever found yourself on one side or the other of those arguments--and who hasn't?--then you simply must read this book."
--Niall Ferguson, The New York Times Book Review

"Rich in both analysis and recommendations.... Read this book. You will learn much you do not know. It will also change the way you look at the tragedy of persistent poverty in a world of plenty."
--Financial Times

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An important book."--Fareed Zakaria

"Insightful and influential."--Newsweek

"An acclaimed bestseller in 2007, and already a set text in development courses worldwide, Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion has far from exhausted its potential to change the way we think about, teach about, and legislate about global poverty...Its policy recommendations, many of which focus on empowering domestic actors, including through voluntary international standards to serve as rallying cries for reform movements, are not only pragmatic but also addressed squarely to the audience that matters most: the G8. It does not hurt its crossover appeal that The Bottom Billon is a model of good writing for the public understanding of social science."--Ethics & International Affairs (publication of the Carnegie Council)

"Excellent...his key recommendations are right on the mark, and his message should resonate in the development discourse for years to come...Highly recommended."--CHOICE

"This is a path-breaking work providing penetrating insights into the largely unexplored borderland between economics and politics."--George Soros

"One of the most important books on world poverty in a very long time."--Richard John Neuhaus, founder of First Things Magazine

"Provides a penetrating reassessment of why vast populations remain trapped in poverty, despite endless debate over foreign aid policy among wealthy countries and institutions."--Barbara McDougall, Jury Chair, The Lionel Gelber Prize, and Canada's Former Secretary of State for External Affairs

"Workable development ideas are hard to find, but Professor Collier may have identified the next frontier for positive change."--Tyler Cowen, The New York Times

"This slip of a book is set to become a classic of the 'how to help the world's poorest' genre. Crammed with statistical nuggets and common sense, his book should be compulsory reading for anyone embroiled in the hitherto thankless business of trying to pull people out of the pit of poverty where the 'bottom billion' of the world's population of 6.6 billion seem irredeemably stuck."--The Economist

"If Sachs seems too saintly and Easterly too cynical, then Collier is the authentic old Africa hand: he knows the terrain and has a keen ear. As Collier rightly says, it is time to dispense with the false dichotomies that bedevil the current debate on Africa. If you've ever found yourself on one side or the other of those arguments - and who hasn't? - then you simply must read this book."--Niall Ferguson, The New York Times Book Review

"Rich in both analysis and recommendations...Read this book. You will learn much you do not know. It will also change the way you look at the tragedy of persistent poverty in a world of plenty."--Financial Times

"Terrifically readable."
--Time.com

About the Author

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. Former director of Development Research at the World Bank, he is one of the world's leading experts on African economies, and is the author of Breaking the Conflict Trap, among other books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195373383
• ISBN-13: 978-0195373387
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Development & Growth
  • #22 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Globalization
  • #25 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Poverty

More About the Author

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University and a former director of Development Research at the World Bank. In addition to the award-winning The Bottom Billion, he is the author of Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

228 of 232 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars finally, a compelling, nuanced, evidence-based treatise on how to help the very poorest July 2, 2007

By David Evans VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Collier has two recommendations for helping the poor: "narrow the target and broaden the instruments." Narrowing the target means focusing not on the five billion people in the "developing world," for four billion of those people live in countries that are already growing, many of them very quickly. One billion of the world's people (70% of whom are in Africa) are in countries that are going nowhere fast, except - in some cases - down. Broadening the instruments means shifting focus from aid to an array of policy instruments: better delivery of aid, occasional military intervention, international charters, and smarter trade policy.

The most frustrating element of recent books on economic development is that they wildly overstate. Jeffrey Sachs, in The End of Poverty, promises that we can eradicate poverty with a few simple (if not easy) steps; and William Easterly, in The White Man's Burden, tells us aid is a disaster (with some tiny caveats at the end). Collier offers the nuanced voice that has been missing. He draws on decades of his and others' careful research to explain four traps that keep most of the bottom billion in captivity and why globalization as it is currently configured will do little for these poorest nations.

He goes on to explore how each of a whole array of policy instruments (including but not limited to aid) can play a key role in helping the bottom billion get on track towards growth.... He explains what kinds of aid are most likely to help post-conflict societies and corrupt societies, how the WTO could actually play a useful role in helping the poorest, how to credibly increase private investment, and where military intervention might actually work. Collier's recommendations feel the most plausible of any out there.

Collier brings credibility to the table with non-technical descriptions of many of his studies as well as anecdotes of challenging Kenya's ex-President Moi on his corrupt agricultural policies or asking Nigeria's finance minister about obstacles to reform. The research is not unassailable (for example, when he calculates the cost of a failing state), but he has spent years using the best data and methods available to get at answers to completely intractable questions: the results are at the very least worth weighing carefully.

The book has no notes except a heavily abridged list of Collier's studies at the end. Some endnotes with better references for those who would like to examine the research more carefully would improve the volume.

Despite that minor critique, this is a readable volume (under 200 pages) with some of the best analysis on economic development that I have read. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, calls The Bottom Billion "the best book on international affairs so far this year." He's right.

[The Kristof quote is from "Africa's World War," New York Times, June 14, 2007. If I haven't convinced you to read the book, then read Niall Ferguson's review in the New York Times ("The Least Among Us," 1 July 2007) or Martin Wolf's review in the Financial Times ("How the bottom billion are trapped," 13 May 2007). Both are available on-line.] Read more ›

86 of 89 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Between a Rock and a Hard Place July 18, 2007

By Etienne ROLLAND-PIEGUE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Developing countries are quite unlike Tolstoi's characterization of happy and unhappy families. Each happy country looks different from the other, and there are vast differences between China, India, Brazil, and other developing success stories, but there is a similarity between unhappy countries--countries that are not only failing to develop, but also going downward and falling apart. Together, these countries have a combined population of about one billion people, and what happen to this bottom billion has important consequences for the whole world.

Paul Collier pioneered the burgeoning research on the economic causes of conflicts, and his work on civil wars has proved quite controversial among political science experts. Those experts tend to interpret civil wars in terms of heroic struggles motivated by grievances or ethnic strifes reflecting deeply-rooted hatreds. The author's research shows that rebel groups are usually doing well out of war, and that greed often trumps grievance as the underlying cause of conflict. He proves this by statistical analysis, showing for instance that there is basically no relationship between political repression and the risk of civil war, or between ethnic fragmentation and conflict (although ethnic polarization does play a part).

Conflict is not the only trap. The author also goes through the natural resource trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbors, and the trap of bad governance in a small country. Those traps often reinforce each other, and their combined effects condemn the bottom countries to the slow lane. In each case, Paul Collier not only successfully reviews the existing literature, but also offers original insights drawn from his own research.... For instance, he demonstrates that far from being immune from the resource curse, democracies may create additional risks by inducing a phenomenon of "survival of the fattest". He is, to my knowledge, the first expert to point out that diversification of resource providers away from the Middle East in the name of energy security may actually increase the risk of disruption on world markets by creating new zones of instability: "Shifting our source of supply simply will not work as a security measure if the resource curse shifts with it."

This research has direct policy relevance. By putting a price tag on the cost of a typical civil war (about 64 billion) or the gain of a sustained turnaround placing a formerly failed state on a secure path (about 100 billion), the author allows decision-makers to base their decisions on cost-benefit analysis. He shows that some interventions have a very large pay-off: the British Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone was a huge success, worth perhaps thirty times its cost. The protection offered by the French against military coups in Africa, now tempered by a hesitation to intervene, was perhaps also worthwhile. The European Union's new rapid reaction force may play a similar role in the future by offering a guarantee to democratic governments conditional upon internationally certified free and fair elections. "Making coups history" is certainly more controversial than the global rally against poverty, but may in the end contribute more to the plight of the bottom billion than the doubling of aid flows.

Indeed, the author shows that aid offers only part of the solution, and the way it is currently managed makes it in certain cases part of the problem. Rich countries and development agencies need to narrow the target by focusing more on the bottom billion, while at the same time broadening the instruments in order to consider policy tools other than aid. This process also characterizes the author's own research, which increases the focus of economic analysis by using cutting-edge statistical tools, while broadening the scope of relevant issues, in order to inform the decisions of policy makers. To give an example, people often wonder how much of Africa's wealth has fled the continent, or how much aid leaks into military spending. Paul Collier not only addresses these issues, he answers them by giving numerical estimates (respectively 38% and 11%).

The book also contributes to the broader debate on globalization. The author has little tolerance for the protest crowds of anti-globalizers who besiege international financial institutions and G8 summits. He calls them by their name: they are anti-capitalists, and they have little interest in helping poor countries benefit from the system that they are fighting against. He also challenge people who care about global poverty but are driven by slogans, images, and anger, instead of rational analysis. But he is no rosy optimist either, and he offers a sobering view on global economic integration. Although globalization has worked wonders to lift a vast portion of humanity out of poverty, it is now making things harder for latecomers, who now face formidable competitors in China or in India. In his own words: "When Mauritius escaped the traps in the 1980s it rocketed to middle-income levels; when neighboring Madagascar finally escaped the traps two decades later, there was no rocket."

The Bottom Billion therefore opens horizons across political divides. To quote from the introduction: "The left will find that approaches it has discounted, such as military interventions, trade, and encouraging growth, are critical means to the end it has long embraced. The right will find that, unlike the challenge of global poverty reduction, the problem of the bottom billion will not be fixed automatically by global growth, and that neglect now will become a security nightmare for the world of our children." Read more ›

71 of 75 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Plausible, but . . . May 25, 2008

By Declan Trott

Format:Hardcover

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. Read more ›