During his career, Walter Adams wrote more than a dozen economics books and untold numbers of scholarly papers. He retired from MSU in 1992 and became the Vernon F. Taylor Distinguished Professor of Economics at Trinity University that same year, a position he held until his death. Trinity's Department of Economics established the Walter Adams Prize for Excellence in Economics in his honor, "to recognize a graduating economics major at Trinity who has achieved great distinction in scholarship and involvement in the life of the University community."