The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it, by Paul Collier; Reinventing foreign aid, edited by William Easterly; Nouvelles migrations latino-américaines en Europe. Bilan et défis, edited by Isabel Yépez and Gioconda Herrera; The gender politics of development: essays in hope and despair, by Shirin M. Rai

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Acknowledgements

This review follows two discussions with Paul Collier at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), both The Hague, 4 June 2008.

Notes

1. A more extensive review can be found at the websites of CIDIN (http://www.ru.nl/cidin/general/recent_publications/) and of The Broker (http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/en/archive/authors/Hoebink-Paul).

2. In some of his papers other remarks can be found, e.g. on the datasets on inequality.

3. Total military spending of North Africa in 2006 was $9.8 billion and total aid to North Africa $2.7 billion (figures from SIPRI (http://www.sipri.org/contents/webmaster/databases) and OECD/DAC (2008)).

4. Total military spending of these four countries alone is suggested (based on figures of the CIA World Fact Book) to be more then $10 billion. Total military spending in Africa is, according to SIPRI, supposed to be $ 18.8 billion and $9.0 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa. Figures differ among sources. Total aid for Africa in 2006 was $43.4 billion and for Sub-Saharan Africa $39.9 billion. Sources: SIPRI (http://www.sipri.org/contents/webmaster/databases), CIA World Fact Book (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/), OECD/DAC (2008).

5. This all of course apart from a discussion on the legitimacy of defence spending also in African countries, which seemed to be challenged by Collier and Hoeffler by the use of the word ‘diverted’.

6. In a recent paper Christa Brunnschweiler and Erwin Bulte (2008a) criticized also the causality that Collier and Hoeffler find in their papers on the resource trap and the relations between resource rents and conflict. They conclude: ‘The last word in the resource curse debate is far from having been spoken; but economic advisors should be aware that natural resources do not necessarily spell doom for development. Instead, their development can be a valuable part of a sustainable development strategy’ (p. 616). The two background papers are: Brunnschweiler and Bulte (2008b, 2008c).

7. Maybe he is the last one we should quote on this type of analysis, because his book The White Man's Burden () is built on only two or three of these type of papers, but Collier's statistical analysis leads William Easterly to the conclusion on Collier's book: ‘If Collier's statistical analysis does not hold up under scrutiny, unfortunately then his recommendations are not a reliable guide for deploying foreign aid, technical assistance or armies. Economists should not be allowed to play games with statistics, much less with guns’ (2007b, pp. 1475–1476).