Paul Collier

Professor Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) at Oxford University. He is Professorial Fellow at St Antony's.

Biographical Information
According to his biographical note "Collier works on a wide range of macroeconomic, microeconomic and political economy topics concerned with Africa. Within macroeconomics he has focused on external shocks, exchange rate and trade policies," it states.

"Within microeconomics he has focused on labour and financial markets, and on rural development, on which he has written three books and many articles. Within political economy, he has worked on the process of policy reform, and has also published a series of articles on `restraining the state'," it states.

During 1992-95, he was Visiting Professor at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard, holding the offer of a Named Chair in International Development. 

Collier, was Director of the Development Research group at the World Bank between April 1998 to April 2003.

He - along with Professors Gunning and Hamada and Dr. Botchwey - undertook an external review of the operations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the Board of the organisation.

He is founding editor of the Journal of African Economies

Collier has had a prickly relationship with non-government organisations (NGOs) over his views on the causes of poverty in Africa. In 1999, while working with the World Bank, Collier offended a number of African and other NGO's to the point that he felt obliged to send an apology to the Director of the Third World Network, Martin Khor.

"The views that you presented at the WTO Symposium, namely, that Africa itself was to blame for its marginalisation, that it should not request special and differential treatment in the WTO (a key principle which, by the way, is integral in the WTO workings and to many of its agreements) and that it should agree to a new Round of negotiations to appease forces in the US and developed countries which are becoming more aggressively protectionist (and in violation of the WTO rules), were most shocking not only to the NGOs present but to the large majority of developing country participants, and even delegations from several developed countries, many of whom had approached me subsequent to my oral presentation (of a summary of the NGOs statement) from the floor on 18 March, Khor wrote in a letter in response.

"Paul Collier is author of the award-winning book The Bottom Billion. ... Mr. Collier has also served as senior advisor to Tony Blair's Commission for Africa. He also completed the first-ever external review of International Monetary Fund (IMF) operations for the Board of the IMF. From 1998 to 2003 he was director of the development research group at the World Bank."

Affiliations

 * Professor Associate of CERDI, Université d'Auvergne;
 * Fellow of the CEPR, London
 * Advisory Council, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
 * Policy Advisory Board, ONE Campaign
 * Editorial Board, African Security

Publications by Collier

 * An extensive list of publications by Collier between 1996 and 2000

Contact information
University of Oxford - Department of Economics Manor Road Building Manor Road Oxford, OX1 3BJ, United Kingdom

Criticism of Collier

 * Ashley Smith, “Haiti after the quake: Imperialism with a human face,” International Socialist Review, March–April 2010.