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Editor's note: A photo of Professor Smith is available via e-mail. Please contact kunews@ku.edu.
LAWRENCE -- A University of Kansas graduate was one of two scholars chosen as recipients of the 2002 Nobel Prize for economics, which was announced today.
Vernon L. Smith received his master's degree in economics from KU in 1952 and is a professor of economics and law at George Mason University in Arlington, Va. He was one of two economists cited for contributions to the economic sciences.
Smith arrived at KU in the fall of 1949. After earning his master's degree, he continued to take classes at KU and was an instructor in the Department of Economics for a year. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He has written or co-written 12 books and 250 articles on capital theory, finance, natural resource economics and experimental economics.
He shares the $1 million award with Daniel Kahneman, professor at Princeton University. The two were recognized for their work on how psychology affects people's buying decisions, and for developing laboratory experiments in economics.
"KU takes great pride in learning that one of our former graduate students, Vernon L. Smith, has won the Nobel Prize for economics," said David Shulenburger, executive vice chancellor and provost at KU. "His trailblazing experimental economics research has moved economics forward by opening up to the profession rigorously controlled study of human economic behavior. He is a most deserving recipient of this high honor."
Smith, hailed as the "father of experimental economics," is credited with pioneering "wind-tunnel tests," which are trials of new market designs carried out in a lab before being implemented in practice.
"He has developed an array of experimental methods, setting standards for what constitutes a reliable laboratory experiment," according to a statement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which administers the Nobel Prize.
In 1995, former KU chemistry professor F. Sherwood Rowland received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Rowland was an assistant professor of chemistry from 1956 to 1964.
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