26 Facts About Michael Lipton

Michael Lipton was born in London on 13 February 1937 to Helen and Leslie Michael Lipton.

Michael Lipton studied at the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School before going to Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in Philosophy, politics and economics.

Michael Lipton later went on to get a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michael Lipton was made a professorial fellow at the University of Sussex's Institute of Development Studies in 1967.

Michael Lipton remained associated with the institution for over 30 years.

Michael Lipton established the Poverty Research Unit at the university in 1994.

Michael Lipton was elected to the British Academy in 2006 and shared the 2012 Leontief Prize.

Michael Lipton was appointed Companion Order of St Michael and St George, CMG, for his contributions to international development, in 2003.

Michael Lipton's research focused on developmental studies, specifically, rural development and poverty reduction.

Michael Lipton started his research in the village of Kavathe Yamai in the Indian state of Maharashtra between 1965 and 1966.

Michael Lipton's interest in this area was influenced by Austrian born British economist Paul Streeten during his time at Oxford, and by his research for Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal, author of Asian Drama: An Inquiry Into the Poverty of Nations.

Michael Lipton argued that these poor farmers acted rationally and managed their resources more efficiently and intensively than rich farmers.

Michael Lipton's studies showed that these farmers' unwillingness to adopt new crop varieties, such as those introduced in the middle of the 20th century during the Green Revolution, was due to the higher risk of crop failure, and prevailing hunger, and destitution.

Michael Lipton wrote against the prevailing notion about poor farmers that they were wasteful, by stating that grain losses on their farms were often low.

Michael Lipton further built on these ideas in his book, The Crisis of Indian Planning, which he co-edited with Paul Streeten.

Michael Lipton's work helped challenge the notion that development could only result from industrialization, which often came at the expense of rural areas through high taxation.

Michael Lipton explored the linkages between agriculture, and health and nutrition, highlighting the ways in which rural people's health and nutrition were guided by agricultural policies.

Michael Lipton worked with various governmental and non-governmental agencies, advising countries such as India, Bangladesh, Botswana, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Africa.

Michael Lipton served as an advisor to the World Bank, where he studied poverty.

Michael Lipton subsequently studied technology-based interventions in agriculture including genetic engineering.

Michael Lipton wrote the first Rural Poverty report for the United Nations' International Fund for Agricultural Development in 2001.

Michael Lipton proposed land reforms in southern Africa which were built on market-based approaches to solve historical inequalities.

Michael Lipton was the editor of the chess problems section of the Sunday Citizen and Correspondence Chess.

Michael Lipton served as the president of the British Chess Problem Society between 2000 and 2002.

Michael Lipton married Merle Babrow, a South African historian and political economist, in 1966.

Outside of his academic life, Michael Lipton was interested in classical music and poetry.