AboutVernon L. Smith, Author at Affluent Christian Investor
Vernon L. Smith
Dr. Vernon L. Smith was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his groundbreaking work in experimental economics. Dr. Smith has joint appointments with the Argyros School of Business & Economics and the School of Law, and he is part of a team that will create and run the new Economic Science Institute at Chapman. Dr. Smith has authored or co-authored more than 250 articles and books on capital theory, finance, natural resource economics and experimental economics. He 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 is past president of the Public Choice Society, the Economic Science Association, the Western Economic Association and the Association for Private Enterprise Education. Previous faculty appointments include the University of Arizona, Purdue University, Brown University, the University of Massachusetts, and George Mason University, where he was a Professor of Economics and Law prior to joining the faculty at Chapman University. Dr. Smith has been a Ford Foundation Fellow, Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology. In 1991, the Cambridge University Press published Dr. Smith's Papers in Experimental Economics, and in 2000, a second collection of more recent papers, Bargaining and Market Behavior. Cambridge published his Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms in January 2008. Dr. Smith has received an honorary Doctor of Management degree from Purdue University, and is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Smith is a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association, an Andersen Consulting Professor of the Year, and the 1995 Adam Smith Award recipient conferred by the Association for Private Enterprise Education. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1995, and received CalTech's distinguished alumni award in 1996. He has served as a consultant on the privatization of electric power in Australia and New Zealand and participated in numerous private and public discussions of energy deregulation in the United States. In 1997 he served as a Blue Ribbon Panel Member, National Electric Reliability Council. Dr. Smith completed his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, his master's degree in economics at the University of Kansas, and his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University.
The Frantic Anti-Trump Feeding Frenzy
My (and your) President Trump–from the sunny skies of Kiev.
I cannot speak of the precision contained in the attached.
We live in a news world saturated with paranoia. Many of us (academics, media, elites, independents, democrats, republican candidates, and … Read More
Trump Tax Cut is a Big Break For Anyone Making a Living, Not Just For Business
The reduction in tax revenue can only lead to increases in payments to (1) individuals—wages, salaries, bonuses; (2) dividends or stock repurchases from shareholders; these lead to greater revenues from individual income taxes offsetting in part the Treasury revenue lost … Read More
For Faster Recovery, Let Deutschebank Go Bankrupt
When a bank needs more capital, and investors are reluctant to incur more risk to save it, that defines the conditions under which bankruptcy and restructuring are in order. So long as the failed bank procedures adequately protect both depositors … Read More
This is the Cost of Protecting Investors From Their Own Decisions
This paper offers several explanations of the decline in new-bank entry, which in recessions tends to be much less severe than it has been since 2007-8. A prominent cause mentioned is the increase in the regulatory burden for start-up … Read More
How Stock Market Crashes are Different From Housing Market Crashes
You did not need the Fed simulation model, Ferbus, to know that there is a difference between housing market crashes and stock market crashes. At the 2005 meeting the FOMC devoted five presentations on the special topic “Housing Valuations and … Read More
Our Weird New Math-Econ-Finance World
We live in a weird math-econ-finance world with so many years of low interest rates. Here is my take on dividend and share buy-backs.
In the article’s chart, cash returned, 2004-8 was from solid growth in sales-output-profits. But cash … Read More
US Companies are Getting Out of Dodge, IRS in Hot Pursuit
The US is tied with Puerto Rico for the third highest corporate marginal income tax rate in the world (39%). The tax comes directly out of investment, employment, output, and taxable individual income from dividends, wages and salaries. And what … Read More
Adam Smith Explains Why We Get So Angry About Politics
It is painful to see so many good friends exchanging barbs over who they are supporting. It is entirely about feelings—ambiguous mixed feelings and genuine fear—but what is expressed are reasons that justify or not tipping in one unhappy direction … Read More
What Has Become of American Civility?
Adam Smith (1759) on drop-in friends and virtuous duties, THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, Oxford University Press, pp 163.
“Your friend makes you a visit when you happen to be in a humour which makes it disagreeable … Read More
Overreaction to Banking Crisis is Uninformed, Vengeful, Costly
The over reaction to the banking crisis has moved from utterly uninformed and vengeful to very costly for the economy. The run-up in housing, starting with the exemption of house capital gains up to 1/2 million dollars in 1997 until … Read More
A Penetrating Self-Criticism of Liberals
This is a penetrating self-examination of what it means to be liberal. Few of any political persuasion are capable of examining their own contradictions. Kristof’s parting shot applies far more broadly than to what my friend John Hughes used to … Read More
Republicans Finally Getting Their Act Together on Health Care
The Republicans seem finally to have gotten an act together to stop complaining about ACA and do something sensible. In effect this is a voucher credit system for healthcare expenditures, paid for out of taxes, instead of forcing new taxes … Read More
Banks Should Have Gone Through Bankruptcy, Not Bailout
It was the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of NY that led the rescue of the large bank investors. These banks should have been put through bankruptcy, not as punishment, but to clean up their balance sheets (in sync … Read More
Righteous Populism and Imperial Presidencies
Responsible Americans, both Democrat and Republican need to address the roots of current anger, fear and frustration in America. What is at stake is much more than just another election. In the heat of this moment our freedom is in … Read More
Bernie Sanders and Eugene Victor Debs
“Gene” Debs as he was known in my railroad family, growing up in the 1930s, was a great American. Today, people look back with horror on Deb’s because he founded the American Socialist party. Of course socialism is utterly wrong-headed, … Read More
Adam Smith Was Right About ‘Fairness’
If Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiment was not about Max-Utility (one’s own), was it about Max-U (one’s own, other’s), where a social preference function includes outcomes for both yourself and other(s)? One modern interpretation is that people are … Read More
Stop Trying to Explain Poverty, And Start Explaining Prosperity
Yes, the important question is: What causes growth in per capita income and wealth? Economic historians teach us that these measures were constant and at extreme poverty levels for 1700+ years, from 0 B.C. into the eighteenth century.
Growth then … Read More
Alaska Oil Slump Answer is To Attract New Businesses
The Alaskan state public deficit is a consequence of a major decline in the economy. The long term focus needs to be on the economy. If and when the economy improves it will enable the state deficit to improve. Most … Read More
Overselling The University Industry
Just as the dairy farmers want the federales to do more for the dairy industry, in my industry we wanted them to do more for university education. They did, and we were the first in line to benefit. It’s called … Read More
Minimum Wage Causes Substitution of Capital For Labor
More capital substitution for minimum wage labor… I was grateful and far more fortunate than today’s young minorities who badly need the experience you gain when first entering the labor force. I made 8 cents per hour delivering on my … Read More
Economic Experiments Catching Up With Adam Smith
This occasional blog will be devoted to my understanding of the work of Adam Smith.
I cannot claim to be either a philosopher or an Adam Smith scholar; rather, I have been drawn into penetrating Smith’s incredible thought process ever … Read More
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