Lee Badgett

M. V. Lee Badgett is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and former director of the School of Public Policy. She is also a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute, where she was a co-founder and the first research director. She has served two terms on the IAFFE board, has been a member of many IAFFE committees, and is a past associate editor and editorial board member of Feminist Economics. Her research focuses on the economic cost of homophobia and transphobia, economic empowerment of LGBTI people, and LGBTI economic inequality (including wage gaps, employment discrimination, and poverty). In the U.S., her work as a “public professor” includes analyzing public policies, testifying as an expert witness, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, public speaking, and writing op-ed pieces. She has served on two panels at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and she cochairs one American Economic Association committee and sits on another. Globally, Prof. Badgett has been a consultant, advisor, or keynote speaker on LGBTI issues for the World Bank, Open For Business, UNDP, USAID, IDB, ADB, U.S. State Department, OECD, global businesses, and LGBTI organizations. Her latest book is The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All (Beacon Press, 2020). She is now working on the LGBTI Livelihoods Project, studying projects designed to improve the livelihoods of LGBTI people.