Paul CollierThe Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It

I think the book is very clearly structured and the writing speaks to you. The book deals with complicated problems but you feel like you are on a quest with the author - he asks the questions that you would have been thinking about.Anyway it took me good week to read this properly. I wanted to take time to understand the issues further but honestly it was a solid read and it's a pleasure to recommend it to others.

Most inflential work of Paul Collier. Just read it and feel the difference.....!

This book has lots of really interesting points, in particular about the various traps that poor countries can fall into. I especially liked that this book described the problem as well as the solution (I feel like many other books accurately illustrate what is wrong with these countries, but not how to solve these problems). The author also uses many examples to back up his points, which gives real-life examples to go with the theory.Sadly, I’ve noticed that the book repeats many of the same points. This basically means that each chapter can essentially be filtered down to about a page of new information. Although some points are new to me, I find that a lot of the text is very very basic (for example, it’s obvious that many of these governments are corrupt, or that not 100% of aid is spent wisely, or that civil wars harm a country’s economic growth, or that landlocked countries find it more expensive to export) - you’d be much better off reading a summary of this book online, and instead spending those hours saved reading something else. That’s not to say that this book is completely useless, but I definitely do feel like the authors have a very simplified understanding of the problems with the Bottom Billion: most of this stuff is common knowledge! The writer also alludes to various “research” that they have done, but fails to give an accurate description of how he has gone about doing this (the phrase “our research has discovered that ....” is common throughout, but as a reader I’ve got no idea what this research actually involved).In retrospect, I definitely regret this purchase. Instead, I could’ve spent the hours saved on something much more productive. For those who want a proper understanding of what causes poverty, I thoroughly recommend Poor Economics.

Working in the mining sector as a geologist and mineral economist, I had previously read Paul Collier’s Plundered Planet looking specifically at resources related economic development, so I was looking forward to reading The Bottom Billion to broaden my understanding of economic development more generally. Prof. (and knight!) Paul Collier is no doubt one of the most qualified people globally to write on this issue, as a professor of economics and public policy at Oxford University with a lifetime of experience looking at development issues in Africa. I listened to this book using the Kindle Audible Narration and was transfixed from the start.As the sub-title suggests the book effectively explains “Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it”.The Bottom Billion presents a very clear framework for understanding and acting upon the problems facing the most severely poor countries. Prof. Collier describes four kinds of poverty trap: conflict, natural resources, landlocked and bad governance. He then discusses four tools which can be used for resolving these issues and importantly the limits of each: aid, military intervention, laws & charters and trade policy, before highlighting in combination the areas of most fruitful action. In particularly he makes a stand for the brave ‘heroes’ of economic development and reform in the developing world and how Western institutions and the electorate (that’s us) need to stand by and support them. I found his framework and arguments very convincing. This is in part due to the concise, lively and personal way he writes. The book is amazingly short for the breadth of material covered. However, it is clear that the book sits atop a tower of research, and thus is in no way lightweight in this respect. In this sense, Prof. Collier is very careful to highlight the sources of his information, and what has and has not been peer reviewed.One of the things I particularly like about this book is its balanced nature. For example, there is careful, nuanced but persuasive discussion of why globalisation has worked for the developed West, and is working for Asia, and will work for most other developing countries, but that for a few countries (the ‘bottom billion’) it will not work. He tackles this issue and other politically charged issues, such as aid, military intervention and international trade, carefully, and in my opinion in a balanced manner, neither leaning too left, or too right; whilst trying to use data rather than ideology in his arguments. I previously held strong (and perhaps ill informed) views on some of these issues and have found that his arguments have at least begun to change my mind and thinking about them.The mineral economist in me also found the sections on natural resources very interesting, and it is relieving to see economists moving beyond simple resource curse theory and onto more constructive arguments about how to develop countries with abundant natural resources. He expands on the subject greatly in The Plundered Planet, which would be a fine accompaniment to this book. For readers more generally interested in economic development, reading the Bottom Billion and then the Plundered Planet is probably the most fruitful order, starting broadly and then focusing on the particularly tricky issue of the resource curse. For those in the minerals or petroleum sectors, starting with the Plundered Planet covering these industries, and then taking a broader look at economic development in general via The Bottom Billion, as I have done, would be recommended.In general, whilst I am still somewhat new to the field of development economics, and I’m sure Prof. Collier is not right on everything, I would be surprised if there were many better starting points for understanding economic development in the poorest countries than this book.

This book should be essential reading for anyone studying African development. I read th whole thing is about 3 sitting. It provides an explanation as to why the countries that hits the bottom billion to the world poor are not their state and what they can do about it. The book draws on so much expertise and experience. It a really convincing read. The point that could be challenged now in 2019 has been raise by Andy Summers of kings college who argues that the, nunerically speaking, most of the world's poor now live in what could be called middle-income countries ( India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa) so the problems with their property is not necessarily being in one of collier's traps, but not prioritizung poverty reduction or developing proper strategies to distribute their income to reduce poverty. Why should India, which has the largest proportion of the poor people, have a space programme?Collier's book is excellent read.

Very good and very intersting postion. Prof Collier is experienced and knowledgeable professional so the book by him must be full of interesting facts. And in this respect I fully recommend it: great read. However it seems to me thta professor's judgemnt is at times clouded by his opinions and believes. It's not difficult to notice that he is a firm believer of power of free trade and capitailsm to solve all our problems. The book apparently proves it. I've just finished it and can't see it. Bits about NGOs and comments about their alleged marxism annoyed me quite a lot (this doesn't mean NGOs work well) as they're simply not needed. Also professor suggests that salvation for the bottom billion countries lies solely in capitalists activity and free trade which I disagree with (and yes, I could provide some arguments).On the other hand there are some really great ideas and NGOs certainly should familiarize themselves with this book, so should people responsible for development in governments.

-If you consider to read just one book about poverty and aid this one is well written, 190 pages, inexpensive, gives insights other books not necessarily give you - a good choice. Be warned that you might want to read more on the topic after finishing this book.-This book analyzes why the bottom billion countries remain the poorest while countries as China and India experiences rapid growth, to what extent anything can be done about their situation and to what extent existing policies are effective. The scope is not to give you an insight into the daily lives of the bottom billion or to learn about the history of these countries. If you search for that you need to look other places.-The authors research presents «4 reasons for misery» - conflict (73%), they have natural resources (29%), they are land locked with bad neighbours (38%) and bad governance in a small country (75%). The author presents «4 instruments to rescue» - aid, military intervention, laws&charters and trade policy.-The book explains how and in what order, what instruments are effective. To be effective, they must be aimed where most likely to fail. This means more (not less) money, time, courage and research on risk management, not lowering the ambitions to where we are more likely to succeed.-Lack of figures and tables is a shortcoming of this book. The 4 traps and 4 instruments idea, can be put into a 4 x 4 table, listing what instruments are effective in the different traps, with some example countries. When we read 190 pages about these countries we want a table telling us what countries we read about...-Some important up-to-date examples and topics for this book is left out. The new landlocked country South Sudan and that land locked Ethiopia is the only country recognizing access-to-sea Somaliland. It is a lot of up to date conflict, landlocked countries, military intervention, infrastructure project etc material here.-As another reviewer has pointed out, the author has left out micro-finance. The author's answer on why - «I can not include everything» is not convincing. Micro-finance is probably more important than fair trade, if the author has a research backed reason not to believe in Micro-finance, it it interesting and on topic to know why, as he does with fair trade. More important is it that the impact and effects og big Chinese investments in Africa is not included. As anyone interested in Aid obviously need these topics covered, "Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa" by Dambisa Moyo is a good alternative to include Micro Finance and Chinese investments.-The Baltic States did not have had a better economic performance than other former Soviet Republics, due to promise of EU membership as such. Then Moldova and Ukraine would not have the 3rd and 5th biggest fall in GDP among the former soviet Republics, while Kazakhstan's fall was lower than Latvia's and Lithuania's. The political institutions in the Baltics in before WWII and the corrupt political institutions in Ukraine, that Estonia and Latvia were the richest Soviet Republics and the civil wars in Moldova probably explains much (Verena Fritz - «State Building» has more). Shell did not plan to lower Brent Spar in the North sea as Collier suggests, but on 2500 meters in the Atlantic Sea. Greenpeace apologized to Shell the 5th of September 1995 for the disinformation that there was 5500 tons of Crude Oil in the platform. According to an independent report Veritas wrote, it was substantial environmental risks if bringing the platform to the shore. See "Brent Spar" in Wikipedia for more info.These examples are not that important, they are not even about the bottom billion. That is part of the point though - why include them? Both examples are in the laws and charters chapter. This chapter and the one about military interventions are arguably less well-written than the others. From the hand of an Economist this is understandable. That does not make them better though.Enjoy your reading, I hope to see better use of tables, inclusion of micro-finance, the Ethiopia/Eritrea/ Somaliland and the Sudan/South Sudan cases in the next edition.Jan