Hope Michelson

About Hope Michelson

Hope Michelson is an Associate Professor of development economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in the department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics. She earned a PhD in applied economics from Cornell University, a MS in agricultural economics from UIUC, and a BA in literature and history from Georgetown University. She is a non-resident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Her research is at the intersection of development and agriculture. She focuses on small farmers in low income countries and on the relationships between agriculture, natural resources, markets, and household outcomes. She has a special interest in household poverty dynamics and food security at multiple spatial scales. Recent work has analyzed small farmer market participation in low income countries: from transactions with traders in small local spot markets to small farmers contracting with multinationals including Walmart. Current projects are mostly in East and Southern Africa but she has also worked in Mexico, Nicaragua, and China.