Carl Liedholm
Biography
Carl Liedholm joined the Department of Economics at MSU in 1965, after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. While he taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses over the course of his career, he is probably best known as a teacher of introductory microeconomics, lecturing from a stage in front of an auditorium filled with hundreds of students. Over the years, Carl received
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over a dozen teaching awards, including the Outstanding Teaching Awards given by the State of Michigan, MSU and the Colleges of Social Science and Business. Beyond that, he developed the first on line course in economics at MSU and was the first instructor in the United States to incorporate personal response devices into an economics class.
Carl has also producing a significant body of research. He began his research career as a specialist in development economics, with a particular interest in discovering solutions to the economic challenges facing the newly independent countries of Africa. Over time, his research took him to other continents as well, and from his early years through 1998, he obtained several million dollars in research grants from the World Bank and USAID for undertaking pioneering research on micro and small scale industries around the world. This work led to four books and over a hundred published articles and papers.
Carl’s career at MSU has also been marked by generous service to the larger mission of the University. Given his reputation as a teacher who could lecture effectively to hundreds of students, he was frequently asked to speak on MSU’s behalf to a variety of audiences, requests that he seldom refused.