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15 interviews · 12 quotes
In conversation
World-renowned development economist Paul Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. In this interview, we discuss his new book Left Behind, where he offers his candid diagnosis of why some…
In this exclusive interview series, we speak to Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Edmund Phelps (Director of the Columbia University Center on Capitalism & Society and the McVickar Professor of Political Economy at…
Elsewhere in the archive
In this interview, I speak to Professor Andrés Velasco — Dean of LSE’s School of Public Policy, Chile’s former Finance Minister, and co-editor of The London Consensus. He argues that ideas, not…
In this interview, I speak to Naré Vardanyan about her incredible entrepreneurship journey- growing up without electricity in Armenia, teaching herself 11 languages by candlelight, and going-on to build a business which…
Joe Zammit-Lucia is an entrepreneur, investor, leadership advisor and commentator. He is an investor and Non-Executive Director in entrepreneurial ventures and advises senior business and institutional leaders on leadership in contemporary culture…
Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and an internationally recognized leader on climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010 to…
The greatest humanitarian crisis in history, is also the greatest crisis of our humanity. To learn more about our global refugee and migration crisis, we speak to Gulwali Passarlay (Afghan refugee, author &…
Originally published in Global ARC. Vikas Shah interviews Alan S. Blinder (the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University) who served as Vice Chairman of the Board…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/08/15/the-greek-opportunity/ “Of all the economic horror stories produced since the banking crisis…” wrote…
In July 2011, the Guardian newspaper reported that in India, “… as the country’s economy booms and millions make the leap from poverty to the ranks of the new middle class, there…
In 2010, The Economist reported the story of Narsama Anthaiah who’s “…sobbing can be heard throughout her village, Nagaram, in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (AP).” They continue to explain, “When…
Recent economic events have brought the concept of financial bubbles from academic texts to the forefront of economic and commercial thought. Whereas economies used to be slow laborious creatures, the globalisation of…
As I write this, my Bloomberg feed shows that, “Euro-region leaders [have] ordered Greece to get the bloc’s highest budget deficit under control and said they are prepared to take “determined” action…
More than ever before in human history, our countries are linked in a complex economic framework which creates dependencies between all nations. In a privileged interview, Thought Economics speaks to Professor Wim…
The past 10 days have been “the most dramatic in Wall Street’s 216-year history” seeing Lehman Brothers collapse, AIG fall into critical distress, and the US Federal Reserve creating a c. US$1…
From the archive
Capitalism isn't miraculous, nor does it work on autopilot; periodically it comes off the rails and has to be pulled-back- that's where public policy comes in.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
To my mind, the essence of capitalism is that decentralised economic decisions can be taken in firms that compete against each other in structured markets, and do so under strong incentives for growth and the increase of productivity. It's the only system we've ever hit-on that appears to be capable of driving mass prosperity.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
I think we were fortunate to get capitalism rather than it being inevitable. Society had been organized long before capitalism began, in the cities of the North of England; where- for the first time on Earth- ordinary people were able to gain from economies of scale, economies of specialisation, and from working in firms and factories.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
What the 1% of SMEs in a region that can really grow desperately need is local risk finance. We can think of this as venture capital. But we need venture capital that will work for SMEs, and that means it's got to be locally based. We've got a lot of venture capital, but it's nearly all in London and the Southeast.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
So Manchester and Sheffield had to apply to Transport for London for money to allocate to their bus routes. This is so comically bizarre that if you put it in a novel it would seem too silly. But that's how it is. The power is amazingly concentrated in Whitehall with a few very clever technocrats who go into it as their first job.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
What happened was that people saw their place going down while London was booming. It's not countrywide; it's not that everyone in the country is poorer. London's doing fine. So people ask: why are they not doing fine when London's doing fine? They start to blame each other.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
Milton Friedman had a postulate about this. He got a Nobel Prize and all the rest of it, very fancy. But as soon as you interrogate this postulate, it's manifestly rubbish. The postulate was that capital would move into a region hit by an adverse shock. So, Sheffield's steel industry collapses. 'Oh well,' says Milton Friedman, 'that means wages are cheaper, property is cheaper, and so capital will move in.' Which sounds fine until you think about it for more than two minutes.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
When the Sheffield steel industry collapsed, incomes collapsed, and so demand in the region collapsed—businesses of all sorts, not just steel but shops and businesses that sold things to consumers. The consumers were poorer, and so businesses started to fail. Investment didn't flow into this region saying 'oh good, a depressed region.' It flowed out to the places which were booming.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
Manchester and Sheffield had to apply to Transport for London for money to allocate to their bus routes. This is so comically bizarre that if you put it in a novel it would seem too silly. But that's how it is.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
The power is amazingly concentrated in Whitehall with very clever technocrats who go into it as their first job. Then they're assigned, aged 24 or 25, things like planning bus routes for Manchester. At the moment, the basic principle in the Treasury is that whatever you do, don't give money to local governments because they will squander it.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
What happened was that people saw their place going down while London was booming. They started to blame each other. We retreat into polarised blame games, and that is very common.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
Milton Friedman had a postulate that capital would move into a region hit by an adverse shock. But as soon as you interrogate this postulate, it's manifestly rubbish. When Sheffield's steel industry collapsed, investment didn't flow in saying 'oh good, a depressed region.' It flowed out to the places which were booming and accentuated the divergence.
— Paul CollierEconomist specializing in poverty, conflict, and development in Africa
