Smith, Vernon L.

(born Jan. 1, 1927, Wichita, Kan., U.S.) U.S. economist. Smith studied economics at the University of Kansas (M.A., 1952) and at Harvard (Ph.D., 1955). He later taught at a number of institutions and in 2001 became a professor at George Mason University. His extensive laboratory experiments in economic analysis laid the foundation for the field of experimental economics. Through such work he was able to determine the theoretical equilibrium, or acceptable market price. He also focused on the outcome of public auctions, showing that the way in which the bidding was organized affected the selling price, and he devised “wind-tunnel tests,” where trials of new alternative market designs, such as those for a deregulated industry, could be tested. In 2002 he shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with Daniel Kahneman.

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