 page and hopefully we'll be able to get replies from our speakers after they leave us, so we'll do the best we can with that. Let's start with a question from our audience today for Professor Collier. Can you comment on Thomas Piketty's proposal in Capital in the 21st Century that the best way to combat growing inequality is to develop transparency and then institute a progressive tax on capital? Okay, thanks. So first of all, let's start with transparency of wealth. And I think that's really important. It's something I've also been fighting for. It's very pertinent for Africa. When crooks loot Africa's wealth, they don't keep it under the bed. What they do is they go to London, they go to lawyers, and the lawyers set up what's called shell companies. And the feature of a shell company is that the true ownership of the company cannot be discovered. True ownership is called the beneficial ownership, legalese. And then, having gone to the lawyers, they nip around the corner to the bankers and they set up a bank account in an offshore bank, Cayman Isles or something like that. And they've got two layers of secrecy. The banks in the Cayman Isles won't say who owns the bank account. And the company, you can't discover who owns the company. And so the crook who's pocketed public money cannot be apprehended. That money cannot be tracked. And so one of the things I've been fighting for is to flush out true beneficial ownership. Britain's prime minister until a month ago, David Cameron, also believed passionately in this. And so he changed the law in Britain. And now there is, for the very first time, and we're an absolutely pioneer country in the world here, there is a compulsory public register for all companies which must show the true beneficial ownership. Cameron fell sufficiently strongly about this, that when it was Britain's turn for the G8 three years ago, he actually brought me to the closing lunch of the leaders. So there was President Obama, Chancellor Merkel and so on. And me and Cameron said, explain to them what matter, you know, why this matters. And I did. And I have to say President Obama came up to me at the end and said, you know, I believe in this. I said, take it to Delaware. America really needs to change your laws to flush out beneficial ownership. This is something that you can't do it. I'm not an American citizen, but you can, you are. And with social media nowadays, you can ignite a network which actually delivers this. What's happened is a disgrace. Cameron also brought together, for the first time ever, all the heads of the 18 overseas territories, the British overseas territories where these banks are. And essentially he read the riot act. So you've got to be transparent. Now some of the overseas territories have become the most transparent on Earth. And so you've got really absolute cutting edge transparency leaders like Bermuda alongside gangster places like the Cayman Isles. That has got to be fought as well. So how do you do it? Well, if you've got a company that's registered with a bank account in the Cayman Isles, you know of such a thing. What's it doing? Why is it there? You know? So please do something about that. The same battle I've already spoken about on land ownership in Africa, which again needs a torch shined on it. As to the tax on wealth, I'm wary of the rhetoric of vilifying the rich, to be honest. You know, in Victorian Britain, there was a distinction, a stupid distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. To my mind, that's a stupid distinction because first of all, most poor people are deserving, but even the ones that are not, we've got to help. And so it's not a productive distinction. But let's try using the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving on the rich. There it's got some mileage. I agree. Here, here. Is my thing on? Is my phone on? Can you hear me? You all? You can hear me. Paul, in your talk, the one word that I missed and I kept missing it and I was anxious to hear it, it would have made my heart so much fuller is the market. You talk a lot about organizations and I agree with what you say. You need incentives and I especially agree. I've written three long books on it which you'll hear about this afternoon on ethics and the conversation in the society about what's honorable and what's not. I think that's the heart of your argument and it's crucial. I agree with it. Go, Paul. But what I didn't hear is the role of markets and freedom in markets. Freedom to start a shop at the corner. Freedom, I mean look in South Africa is the only African country that I know it all well. In South Africa to start a company you need the permission of a foreigner. Let's talk about a foreigner. Foreigners who want to invest in South Africa would love to start companies in South Africa have to go through a bureaucracy and it takes years to get permission to open a factory or something which is crazy. So how about that? How about the market? Let's hear it now. Mark, it's really matter. And let me put my money where my mouth is. I'm working with the new head of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation which is the private sector arm of the World Bank. And pro bono, I should hasten to that. But what I'm working, his mission, he's redefined the mission of the IFC as creating markets in countries where they don't exist. What's the RSP? The RSP? IFC, International Finance Corporation. So the mission of that organization is going to be creating markets where they're currently missing. Well, by the way, creating markets, you mean some guy from the World Bank is going to go to say, hey look, I'll create a market? No, no, no. Don't just let people do it. So it's partly a regulatory issue. It's partly encouraging proper reputable firms to go and do business in places that at the moment they'd rather not go to. You know, that's to put the cap in charge of the canaries, I'm afraid. So, you know, we might not agree on this, but I'd want the canaries to sing by themselves. But okay. I think there's a role, there's a role, markets are public entities. Oh, yeah. I don't think so. I think they're the spontaneous order that comes from people making deals. But I agree with so much of what you say that I don't want to undermine. So what is the, you know, you're talking about the productivity of the firm and the lack of productivity with the artisan. So what is the role, or what role does foreign investment play, foreign firms coming into a country? I mean, does that become an island and with very little spillover effects or there are ways that there are spillover effects so you get the knowledge to deal with complexity, spills over into the local entrepreneurs. Let's take an example of Bangladesh where we can see this has happened over the years. So Bangladesh has got a huge garments industry, huge, many, many billions of dollars of exports. It's played a vital social role because it provided jobs for young women. And that changed the power relationships within the family. Sunday night I was having dinner with young Bangladeshi friends and they were saying, you know, this was the key dynamic in Bangladesh which changed gender relationships. So the first garment factories that went to Bangladesh were foreign firms. At the end of the first year they had a very high quit rate amongst their workforce because a lot of the workers said, we can do this. And they did. A pioneer firm that hits the right thing is hugely social beneficial. It generates imitation. And that is a big social benefit. It's not a benefit to the firm. That, dear tree, if you'll permit me, is why we need IFC to help catalyze things. The pioneers don't want to go on pioneer because they don't reap the benefits. Well, maybe. Let's talk about one thing. Maybe as good as I'll get. I'll settle for maybe. Can I follow up? One thing I believe we agree all is the question of productivity. As you said in the beginning, the task of economics is to increase the productivity of the common people. And I think there is not disagreement here. We all want to be more productive. We all want to increase our leverage. But here's a question that puts productivity and markets together. So in this country, the past 40 years, I believe, productivity, this is the United States, has increased 70%. Wages have risen only 9%. So while productivity is actually rising, it seems it's not equally shared by everybody who's reaping the benefits. And so I'm wondering in this conversation here, international investments, markets and so on, are there any lessons for us how we can think about not only increasing productivity, but also increasing people's shares in what they achieve, what they accomplish? And what are the hurdles for that? Why is it that there's this incredible gap between the rise in productivity and the actual rise in wages? That's America's problem, but it's not yet Africa's problem. Africa hasn't yet had the incredible increase in productivity. So my answer is, you know, let's get there. Can we learn something from Africa, though? Is there something for us that we could perhaps copy? I don't think you want to copy very much of what's been going on in Africa. Music, music. Yes, I'm sorry, that is absolutely quite right. There's a lot of wonderful cultural stuff in Africa, but I wouldn't copy the politics and I wouldn't copy the economics. Well, I would copy the economics. I wish Britain had copied Botswana. So let me, as a Chicago economist on the board, I need to follow up. I think Deirdre sort of stole my thunder today. So I want to say this was a real treat. I think the presentation was just excellent. When I think about development, I think about property rights, I think about corruption, I think about agglomeration economies, I think about education, I think about non-pecuniary factors, and you fluidly touched on all of those. In a very cogent way, it was really remarkable. It was a tour de force, I think. So I want to thank you for the talk. It was excellent. You clearly thought deeply about these issues, very, very deeply. Now, if you were in charge of the aid from the U.S. that went over to Africa, how would you allocate that to ensure the obstacles that you've mentioned here? Many of them are obstacles, and to me, aid can help set up markets to overcome those obstacles. I think after you earn surplus, the government decides how to allocate it. I think you should always differentiate those. They're linked, but you should differentiate them to start. How would you think about using aid today to overcome these obstacles that you've put forward for us? Yeah. Okay, you both probably find this a heresy, right? But Africa is desperately short of effective private organizations. The firms in Africa, there are very few firms that do scale and specialization. The quickest way to get them is to bring those firms in. Pretty sensibly, the world's firms are not queuing up to get on planes to go. There are firms that are queuing up to get on planes to go. They're the crooks. You can make money in Africa. There's an easy way, right? It's plunder, right? That's why we want to close off the beneficial ownership loopholes and that sort of stuff to close that option down. But that still leaves the problem of getting the good firms, the reputable firms, to come to places where there's not a lot of money to be made. IFC takes equity in reputable firms that go into difficult places. The rate of return on that equity at the moment is negative. And so there's a problem. Until firms come into these places, they'll stay fragile and poor. If they go in, enough of them, it will break the trap. But it won't be they that benefit. They'll have a huge public good role. And so I believe there's a need to use public money to incentivize private firms. Now, that's got to be very carefully done, very carefully done. But it could be designed in such a way that it was incentive-compatible. At the moment, we lack the international architecture in public finance to make that link possible. The only country that's been doing that has been China. And some of what China has done in Africa is terrible. Some of what it's done is pretty dramatically good. And we need to get into that game with clean rules. When I hear the phrase public-private cooperation, I hear it in my ears as public-private conspiracy. I mean, if you haven't got Swedish standards of public administration or Minnesotan standards of public administration, and it's no accident that the Swedish flag is around here all the time, then public-private collaborations are going to be your crooks, aren't they? By the cooperation that I mean, it's a partnership between International Finance Corporation, which is a properly scrutinized global public entity. It's reputable. It's reputable. And Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. It's reputable. Okay, I agree. And that partnership would be above question, but it would be competent. And the core skills that MMM has built over the years are desperately needed in environments that the MMM board quite sensibly says, let's not bother. I suggest you don't use any corporations from Illinois. I'm say sorry. Unfortunately, the economic problem of the scarcity of time plagues us once again if we're going to stay on schedule. I'm sorry we have to cut this off. We will continue this afternoon. John List will be on stage at one o'clock. There will be music for you beginning about 22 or quarter to. Thank you, and we hope to see you this afternoon.