Vernon L. Smith

Vernon L. Smith
Born	(1927-01-01) January 1, 1927
Nationality	United States
Academic career
Field	Behavioral economics
School or tradition	Neoclassical economics
Influences	Wassily Leontief Hayek
Contributions	Experimental economics Combinatorial auction

Vernon Lomax Smith (born January 1, 1927) is professor of economics at Chapman University's Argyros School of Business and Economics and School of Law in Orange, California, a research scholar at George Mason University Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, and a Fellow of the Mercatus Center, all in Arlington, Virginia. Smith shared the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Daniel Kahneman. He is the founder and president of the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C.. In 2004 Smith was honored with an honorary doctoral degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, the institution that named the Vernon Smith Center for Experimental Economics Research, after him.

Biography

Education

Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas where he attended Wichita North High School and Friends University. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Caltech in 1949, an M.A. in economics from the University of Kansas in 1952, and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1955.

Academic career

Smith's first teaching post was at the Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, which he held from 1955 until 1967, attaining the rank of full professor. It was there that his work in experimental economics began. As Smith describes it:

In the Autumn semester, 1955, I taught Principles of Economics, and found it a challenge to convey basic microeconomic theory to students. Why/how could any market approximate a competitive equilibrium? I resolved that on the first day of class the following semester, I would try running a market experiment that would give the students an opportunity to experience an actual market, and me the opportunity to observe one in which I knew, but they did not know what were the alleged driving conditions of supply and demand in that market.

Smith also taught as a visiting associate professor at Stanford University (1961–1962) and there made contact with Sidney Siegel, who was also doing work in experimental economics. Smith moved with his family to Massachusetts and got a position first at Brown University (1967–1968), then at the University of Massachusetts (1968–1972). Smith also received appointments at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1972–1973) and Caltech (1973–1975). At Caltech, Charlie Plott encouraged Smith to formalize the methodology of experimental economics, which he did in two articles. In 1976, "Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory" was published in the American Economic Review (AER). This was the first articulation of the principle behind economic experiments. Six years later, these principles were expanded in "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," also in the AER. This paper neatly adapts the principles of a microeconomic system developed by Leonid Hurwicz - a recent winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences - to the development of economic experiments. In Hurwicz' formulation, a microeconomic system consists of a economic environment, an economic institution (or economic mechanism), and an economic outcome. The economic environment is simply the preferences of the people in the economy, and the production capabilities of the firms in the economy. The key insight in this formulation is that the economic outcome can be affected by the economic institution. Mechanism design provide a formal means for tests of the performance of an economic institution, while experimental economics - as developed by Smith - provided a means for formal empirical assessment of the performance of economic institutions. There is a second key contribution of his influential paper Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science" though that goes beyond adaptation of the concepts of mechanism design developed by Hurwicz. In his paper, Smith describes the technique of induced values. This is the method used in controlled laboratory experiments in economics, political science, and psychology. This technique is what allows experimental economists to create a replica of a market in a laboratory. Subjects in an experiment are told that they can produce a "commodity" at a cost, and then sell it to buyers. The seller earns the difference between the price received and its cost. Buyers are told that the commodity has a value to them when they consume it, and earn the difference between the value of the commodity to them and its price. Using this technique, Smith and his coauthors have examined the performance of alternative trading mechanisms in resource allocation.

Much of the research that earned Smith the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was conducted at the University of Arizona between 1976 and 2002. In 2002 Smith left Arizona for George Mason University. In 2008, Smith founded the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University in Orange, California. In February 2011, Smith participated in the "Visiting Scholars Series" at the Nicholas Academic Centers in Santa Ana, CA., conducted in collaboration with Chapman University. Smith and his colleague, Bart Wilson, conducted experiments designed to expose the high school students from under-served neighborhoods to market dynamics and how concepts such as altruism influence economic behavior. The Nicholas Academic Centers conduct after-school tutoring and mentoring programs, which in three years have helped more than 100 graduating seniors gain admission to top U.S. colleges and universities.

Smith has authored or co-authored over 200 articles and books on capital theory, finance, natural resource economics and experimental economics. He was also one of the first to propose combinatorial auction, with Stephen J. Rassenti and Robert L. Bulfin in 1982.

Smith serves or has served on the board of editors of the American Economic Review, The Cato Journal, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Science, Economic Theory, Economic Design, Games and Economic Behavior, and the Journal of Economic Methodology. He also served as an expert for the Copenhagen Consensus.

Smith's papers have been published by Cambridge University Press: Papers in Experimental Economics (1991) and Bargaining and Market Behavior: Essays in Experimental Economics (2000).

In February 2005 Smith spoke out publicly about his Asperger syndrome, which is part of the autism spectrum.

In January 2009 Smith signed a public paper opposing the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act In a 2010 Econ Journal Watch study, Smith was found to be one of the most active petition signers among US economists.

See also

• List of economists
• combinatorial auction

References

• Rassenti, Stephen J. (1982). "A Combinatorial Auction Mechanism for Airport Time Slot Allocation". Bell Journal of Economics. 13 (2): 402–417. doi:10.2307/3003463. JSTOR 3003463. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Smith, Vernon L. (1976). "Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory". American Economic Review. 66 (2): 274–279. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help); External link in |title= (help)
• Smith, Vernon L. (1982). "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science". American Economic Review. 72 (5): 923–955. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Williams, Arlington W. (2000). "Concurrent trading in two experimental markets with demand interdependence". Economic Theory. 16 (3): 511–528. doi:10.1007/s001990050002. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Economic Science Institute at Chapman University
• Dr. Vernon L. Smith at Chapman University Economic Science Institute
• Dr. Vernon L Smith at Chapman University School of Law
• Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES) at George Mason University
  • Vernon Smith at George Mason University
• Senior Fellow at Cato Institute
• Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in Economics 2002 lecture at NobelPrize.org
• Profile and Papers at Research Papers in Economics/RePEc
• Vernon L. Smith at Econlib
• Template:Worldcat id
• Honorary Doctoral Degrees at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, March 25, 2004
• Audivisual Media at NewMedia Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Articles

• Article archive at Forbes
• Article archive a Newsweek
• Interview with Vernon Smith, Region Focus, Spring 2003
• Reflections On Human Action After 50 Years by Vernon L. Smith, Cato Journal, Fall 1999
• Human Betterment through Globalization by Vernon L. Smith
• "Using Experiments to Inform the Privatization/Deregulation Movement in Electricity," by Stephen J.Rassenti,Vernon L.Smith, and Bart J.Wilson
• Vernon Smith on Markets and Experimental Economics. EconTalk podcast interview with Vernon Smith, May 2007
• Austrian and Experimental Economics, by Vernon L. Smith.
• Economics in the Laboratory
• Honorary Doctorate Ceremony and Speech
• Discovery Exchange: Specialization and Proprerty
• From Bubble to Depression?, Steven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith, Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2009