Paul Collier talks to Sophie Roell

Economist Professor Sir Paul Collier says ‘left behind’ places can be found across the world from South Yorkshire to Barranquilla in Colombia and asks why the poorest are falling further behind and what we can do about it.

Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. He says the poorest countries in the world are falling further behind the rest of humanity because of stale economic orthodoxies that prioritise market forces and centralise bureaucracies such as the UK Treasury. He says new research has revealed the importance of collective learning, social capital and local agency in reversing decline and equalising life-chances.

Collier is professor of economics and public policy at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and author of The Future of Capitalism and The Bottom Billion. He is a communitarian and was awarded the Adam Smith Prize by Glasgow’s Philosophical Society and the Global Citizenship Award by Belgium’s cooperative movement. Here he talks to Sophie Roell,  a former financial reporter, who is co-founder and editor of Five Books, a book recommendation website that features interviews with experts.