Michael Carter has been named a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association. Carter served on the faculty in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics from 1984 until July of this year, when he accepted a position at the University of California-Davis. His work here has focused on the nature of growth and transformation in low income economies, giving particular attention to how inequality in the distribution of land and other assets shape, and are shaped by, economic growth. The following citation was read when the fellowship was conferred:

Over the past 25 years, Michael Carter has been a constant fixture in the University of Wisconsin at Madison community through teaching, serving as major advisor on more than 35 doctoral disserations, and his participation on several executive committees throughout a variety of interdisciplinary departments. Since 2001, he has served as the director of BASIS Assets and Market Access Collaborative Research Support Program.

Carter has continued to focus on his research, which falls into three primary areas: wealth-biased access to capital; land policy and poverty reduction in agrarian economies; and poverty traps and income distribution dynamics. He has conducted more than twenty household surveys around the world. Carter’s research has been published in leading development economics journals and policy conferences and has been quoted by international policymakers and major donor organizers such as the World Bank and the United States Agency of International Development. He has published more than 35 journal articles, co-authored 3 books, and written more than 25 book chapters.

Carter has also served as editor for Studies in Comparative International Development, World Development, and American Journal of Agricultural Economics and has refereed articles for many other publications.