Quotes from Paul Collier

At the core of all successful societies are procedures for blocking the advancement of bad men

Rebels usually have something to complain about, and if they don't they make it up. All too often the really disadvantaged are in no position to rebel; they just suffer quietly.

You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.

Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation.

Change in the societies at the very bottom must come predominantly from within; we cannot impose it on them.

Launching a turnaround takes courage. I cannot measure that and so it is not going to be included in my analysis, but behind the moments of change there are always a few people within these societies who have decided to try to make a difference.

Most conduct is guided by norms rather than by laws. Norms are voluntary and are effective because they are enforced by peer pressure.

The aid agencies are not run by fools. they are full of intelligent people severely constrained by what public opinion permits.

Poverty is not intrinsically a trap, otherwise we would all still be poor.

Not all developing countries are the same.

An identity of being 'on the left' has become a lazy way of feeling morally superior; an identity of being 'on the right' has become a lazy way of feeling 'realistic'.

The key obstacle to reforming aid is public opinion.. Public opinion drives them into the "I care" photo opportunities that dominate aid.

Politicians would only move beyond gestures once there was a critical mass of informed citizens.

Populism offers the headless heart; ideology offers the heartless head.

Persuading everyone to behave decently to each other because the society is so fragile is a worthy goal, but it may be more straightforward just to make the societies less fragile, which means developing their economies.

Encouraging your firm to have a decent sense of purpose is your contribution to society, but continuing to work for one which lacks purpose is personally soul-destroying.

They are the people who currently dominate the media. An identity of being 'on the left' has become a lazy way of feeling morally superior;

Governments could recognize the huge value added if the two biological parents choose to live together with the child: a tax-credit bonus could reduce the tax burden for those who are taxpayers, and income could be supplemented by an equivalent amount for those who are not. The commitment of young parents to their children benefits us all, and we should be prepared to pay for it. When parents withhold this commitment, the rest of us pay for it – heavily.

The critical changes in trade policy... are politically difficult not because they threaten interests (they don't) but because they do not fit into any of the current slogans and so don't make it onto the agenda.

As an economist, I have learned that decentralized, market-based competition – the vital core of capitalism – is the only way to deliver prosperity, but what are the founts of the other aspects of well-being? Whereas economic man is presumed to be lazy, purposive action such as work is important for esteem.

Suppose a country starts its independence with the three economic characteristics that globally make a country prone to civil war: low income, slow growth, and dependence upon primary commodity exports. It is playing Russian roulette. That is not just an idle metaphor: the risk that a country in the bottom billion falls into civil war in any five-year period is nearly one in six, the same risk facing a player of Russian roulette.

The distinguished psychologist Martin Seligman has conducted a sustained programme of research on the attainment of well-being. His conclusion is unambiguous: 'If you want well-being, you will not get it if you only care about accomplishment . . . Close personal relationships are not everything in life, but they are central.'14

For every $135 of public money spent on an asylum-seeker in Europe, just $1 is spent on a refugee in the developing world.

Today over half the world's refugees are in 'protracted refugee situations' and for them the average length of stay [in camps] is over two decades.