Poverty In Paul Collier's 'The Bottom Billion'

Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion, originally published in 2007, details his personal theory of why the poorest countries in the world, or the bottom billion, continue to see little to no economic growth on their perpetual cycle of poverty. Collier gained years of experience in the field of global poverty as the director of the research department at the World Bank, and as a professor at both Oxford and Harvard. His comprehensive theory, developed after nearly 35 years of research, outlines four “traps” which make it extremely difficult for many countries to escape poverty: conflict, natural resources, geographic location, and bad governance. Even if a country is able to escape one of these development traps, they face an even larger problem: “the global market is now far more hostile to new entrants than it was in the 1980’s” (Collier 6). Therefore, Collier’s main argument is that these traps have held many countries back just enough to the point where true growth and development is nearly impossible.

After outlining the details of each of the four traps, Collier suggests a few reasons why beginning development now is much harder than doing so in the past. Collier begins with globalization, which contains three distinct aspects: trade, migration, and flow of capital. Globalization, although it has been successful in creating growth for many other countries, impairs the ability of the bottom billion to grow. Now, the incentive for the bottom billion to simply supply the natural resources for these developing nations prevents the poorest nations from adopting the same manufacturing and service exports that helped countries like China succeed in the first place.

Collier then describes the many instruments that can be used as cata...

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...wth, while others believe that growth is not occurring because people aren’t working hard enough. Not only does he identify the truth in both statements, but he also suggests the reasons why each fails to explain the true cause of poverty. The only place in which I believe Collier could have improved is the inclusion of specific case studies on the effectiveness of individual aid to poor nations. Although he analyzed the effectiveness of overall monetary aid to nations in poverty, a specific study of one nation and the effectiveness of its individual donations could have allowed a reader to identify with the situation more closely, rather than analyze the impact of total international aid. Overall, this book was effective in its purpose of exposing the issues facing the bottom billion and educating readers on its causes, and suggest solutions without political bias.