Rate My Professor Vernon L. Smith

Vernon L. Smith, a pioneering figure in Business & Economics, served as McLellan/Regent's Professor of Economics at The University of Arizona from 1976 to 2001, where much of his groundbreaking research was conducted. He earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1949, a Master of Arts in economics from the University of Kansas in 1952, and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1955. Smith's distinguished career includes positions at Purdue University as full professor from 1955 to 1967, Brown University from 1967 to 1968, University of Massachusetts from 1968 to 1972, Caltech from 1973 to 1975, George Mason University as Professor of Economics and Law from 2001 to 2008 where he is now Professor Emeritus, and currently joint appointments as Professor of Economics and Law and George L. Argyros Endowed Chair in Finance and Economics at Chapman University's Argyros School of Business and Economics and Fowler School of Law. There, he co-founded the Economic Science Institute.

Renowned as the father of experimental economics, Smith received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for establishing laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, particularly for studying alternative market mechanisms. His research specializations include experimental economics, economics and law, finance, capital theory, natural resource economics, industrial organization, real estate, and Adam Smith's theories. He has authored or co-authored more than 375 articles and books such as Papers in Experimental Economics (1991), Bargaining and Market Behavior (2000), Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms (2008), Humanomics with Bart Wilson (2019), Economics of Markets with Sabiou Inoua (2022), and Adam Smith’s Theory of Society (2025). Among his honors are Fellowships in the Econometric Society, American Economic Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995. Smith has served as past president of the Public Choice Society, Economic Science Association, Western Economic Association, and Association for Private Enterprise Education, and on editorial boards including American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Games and Economic Behavior.