M.V. Lee Badgett

M. V. Lee Badgett is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute. Her current research is on the relationship of LGBT inclusion to economic development and poverty in the LGBT community.

New newest book is The Public Professor: How to Use Your Research to Change the World. Her book, When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage (NYU Press, 2009), analyzes the positive U.S. and European experiences with marriage equality for gay couples. Her first book, Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (University of Chicago Press, 2001), presented her groundbreaking work debunking the myth of gay affluence.

She has consulted with the World Bank, UNDP, USAID, and other international agencies, and she has testified on her work before the U.S. Congress, many state legislatures, and in California’s Prop 8 trial. Her work has been cited in congressional testimony and legal briefs. She is quoted regularly in newspapers across the country, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post.