Rate My Professor Trent Smith

Associate Professor Trenton G. Smith serves in the Department of Economics at the University of Otago's Otago Business School. He earned a B.A.S. in Biological Sciences and Economics from Stanford University in 1990, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford in 1993, an M.A. in Economics from Stanford in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2002, with a dissertation titled 'Toward a Unified Theory of Choice: Case Studies in Dietary Preference.' His career includes positions as Assistant Professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University from 2004 to 2011, Global Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA International Institute from 2003 to 2004, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Bonn from 2002 to 2003. Smith joined the University of Otago as Senior Lecturer in 2011, advancing to Associate Professor in 2018, and currently holds the role of Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics programme since 2025.

Smith's research specializes in behavioural economics, health economics, and industrial organisation, applying economic methods from a biological perspective to phenomena such as dietary choice, obesity, addiction, economic insecurity, and mass marketing. He teaches courses including ECON 206: The World Economy, ECON 318: Behavioural Economics, ECON 410: Advanced Microeconomic Theory, and PHPE 201: Political Economy I: Method, Philosophy, Applications. Notable publications encompass '“Rational Overeating” in a Feast-or-Famine World: Economic Insecurity and the Obesity Epidemic' with Stillman and Craig in the Southern Economic Journal (2024); 'Endocrine State is the Physical Manifestation of Subjective Beliefs' in the Journal of Economic Psychology (2023); 'Economic insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insight from the Great Recession' with Clyne in New Zealand Economic Papers (2022); 'Smart food policies for obesity prevention' with Hawkes et al. in The Lancet (2015); 'The Economics of Information, Deep Capture, and the Obesity Debate' with Tasnádi in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (2014); 'Economic Stressors and the Demand for “Fattening” Foods' in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (2012); and 'A Theory of Natural Addiction' with Tasnádi in Games and Economic Behavior (2007). His contributions extend to book chapters on behavioural economics topics and analyses of neuroeconomics.