March 2020: Sir Paul Collier

Sir Paul Collier’s research covers fragile states, a topic on which he is co-directing a Commission of the British Academy; restoring growth in African economies, on which he worked for the 2017 G20 at the invitation of Germany’s Minister of Finance; the implications of group psychology for development, on which he is co-managing a research network led by Nobel Laurate George Akerlof; migration and refugees, which are the subject of two of his recent books; urbanization in poor countries, a programme that has just won challenge funding from the Foreign Office; and the crisis in modern capitalism, which is the subject of his most recent book, The Future of Capitalism.

Six books published since 2007, including The Bottom Billion, which won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine prizes and was the joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book prize, and his latest, Refuge, which is an Economist ‘book of the year’. 

Professor Collier received a knighthood in 2014 for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa, and has been listed as one of the hundred most influential public thinkers in five of the past ten years.