Vernon Lomax Smith (born January 1, 1927) is an American economist who is currently a professor of economics and law at Chapman University.

[8][9][10] As of 2023, Smith also sits on the Advisory Board of the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University.

Grover Bougher, Vernon's mother's first husband, who worked as a fireman on the Santa Fe railroad, died in an accident.

The life insurance money provided by the Santa Fe railroad was invested in a farm which became the sole means of survival for Vernon's family during the tough years of the Great Depression.

[13] Smith's first teaching post was at the Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, which he held from 1955 until 1967, attaining the rank of full professor.

[3] Smith also taught as a visiting associate professor at Stanford University (1961–1962) and there made contact with Sidney Siegel, who was also doing work in experimental economics.

[3] Much of the research that earned Smith the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was conducted at the University of Arizona between 1976 and 2001.

As Smith describes it: In the Autumn semester, 1955, I taught Principles of Economics, and found it a challenge to convey basic microeconomic theory to students.

[21] In February 2011, Smith participated in the "Visiting Scholars Series" at the Nicholas Academic Centers in Santa Ana, California, conducted in collaboration with Chapman University.

Smith and his colleague Bart Wilson conducted experiments designed to expose high school students from underserved neighborhoods to market dynamics and how concepts such as altruism influence economic behavior.

[26] Vernon Smith is renowned for his seminal contributions to the elucidation of spontaneous order[27][circular reference] within the field of economics.

He posits spontaneous order as the organic emergence of structure and coherence from apparent disorder, a phenomenon ubiquitously observed in both social and economic contexts.