Professor Michael Lipton, the last surviving founding faculty member of the University of Sussex, died on 1 April 2023, aged 86.
The funeral will be held on Thursday 18 May, 11.30am, at the Woodvale Crematorium, Lewes Road, Brighton.
Professor Lipton joined Sussex in our first year, 1961/2, as one of our founding teacher-researchers, after starting his career at All Souls, Oxford. He was then Professor at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) between 1967 and 1994. In 1994 he joined the Department of Economics and founded the Poverty Research Unit in the School of African and Asian Studies (AFRAS), where he was a Research Professor until 2016. He remained a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics.
Professor Lipton cared passionately about the poor in developing countries and dedicated his life to understanding the economics of poverty. His important contributions in this field are very highly regarded and delved into diverse areas such as urban bias, genetically modified seeds, foreign aid, nutrition, land reform, property rights, and migration. In addition to his important academic contributions, he also authored the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s 1999-2001 Rural Development Report, and advised the World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute and the governments of Botswana and South Africa.
Professor Lipton was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2006 and was a recipient of the economic theory Leontief Prize in 2012. He was a Rockefeller Fellow (MIT) and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He was a regular participant at Department of Economics seminars and was well known for his insightful questions and astute comments. He generously supported PhD students and early career researchers and will be remembered with respect and affection by our University community. Professor Lipton, whose wife, the scholar Merle Lipton, died only a few months ago, is survived by his son, Emanuel.