[2] The experience of working under Vito Volterra shaped his intellectual life and solidified his interest in the application of mathematics to a broad range of fields.

[2] During his time at Rice, he managed to attract significant mathematicians as visiting professors, such as Szolem Mandelbrojt, Tibor Rado, and Karl Menger.

Much of his success was due to his ability to recruit many notable research mathematicians, including Hans Lewy, Jerzy Neyman, and Alfred Tarski.

Evans first work in mathematical economics, entitled A Simple Theory of Competition[6] a restatement of Augustine Cournot's monopoly/duopoly model.

Evans expanded Cournot's work in significantly by exploring the analytical implications of a variety of different assumptions as to the behavior and objectives of either the monopolist or the duopolists.

Even so, the more mathematically inclined economists and mathematicians E. B. Wilson, Irving Fisher, Henry Schultz, and Paul Samuelson[10] all recognized the importance of their theory.

[12] R. G. D. Allen, a colleague of Bowley, also criticized the book for not presenting a general economic theory and focusing too much on the resolution of particular problems.

[13] Some positive reviews came from Roos and Hotelling, the latter going as far as saying that the book helped "lay a groundwork upon which future contributions to political economy of first-rate importance may be expected to be based".

In 1934 he contributed Maximum Production Studied in a Simplified Economic System[15] to the recently established journal Econometrica, published on behalf of the Econometric Society.

[16] He also maintained contact with the field attending seminars and presenting papers at meetings organized by the Econometric Society[17] and the Cowles Commission for Economic Research.

Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis formalized dynamics as the study of the limiting properties of systems of differential equations.