Nobel Prize-winning economist to speak at Lancaster University

Professor Vernon Smith, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, will deliver a lecture at Lancaster University about his work which has included founding Experimental Economics.

The event, the second Andrews and Brunner Lecture, will take place on Tuesday April 21 for an audience of academics, business leaders and members of the public. 

Experimental Economics has revolutionised economics and influenced Social Science disciplines, making them more scientific. He is the 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Professor  Smith earned degrees from Caltech, the University of Kansas, and Harvard, and has worked at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts, and Caltech, among other institutions. He has been at Chapman University, in Orange, California, since 2008.

He has carried out extensive experimental research on financial market bubbles, looking at the housing crisis contribution to the Great Recession.

Continuing to work into his 90s, he has examined the links between science and religion, and is using laboratory experiments to gain a deeper insight of the role of moral sentiment in economic interactions.

His lecture, A Rehabilitation of Classical Economics: Lessons from Experiments, will look at how experiments enabled classical economics to be rehabilitated in the 20th century.

Professor Eyal Winter, P.W.S. Andrews and Elizabeth Brunner Chair in Industrial Economics in Lancaster University Management School’s Department of Economics, said: “Professor Smith is a renowned figure across the economics world, and he is sure to provide an engrossing evening that is full of insight from his lecture.

“He is a leading figure in our field, and he has shaped modern experimental economics to a great extent. His work in the lab and in the field will be fascinating to all in attendance.”

Professor Smith’s lecture is the second by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics at Lancaster University, following the start of the Andrews and Brunner Series, when Professor Alvin Roth spoke at the Management School in November.

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