A Life of Experimental Economics, Volume I : Forty Years of Discovery

This book provides an intimate history of Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith’s early life, combining elements of biography, history, economics and philosophy to show how crucial incidents early in his life provided the necessary framework for his research into experimental economics. Smith takes the reader from his family roots on the railroads and oil fields of Middle America to his early life on a farm in Depression-wracked Kansas. A mediocre student in high school, Smith attended Friends University, on Wichita’s west side, where an intense study of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy enabled him to pass the examinations to enter Caltech and study under luminary scientists like Linus Pauling. Eventually Smith discovered economics and pursued graduate study in the field at University of Kansas and Harvard. This volume ends with his Camelot years at Purdue, where he began his famous work in experimental economics, nurturing his research into an unlikely new field of economics. Volume 1. This book describes the author's early life, combining elements of biography, history, economics and philosophy to show how crucial incidents early in his life provided the necessary framework for his research into experimental economics. It goes from his family roots on the railroads and oil fields of Middle America to his early life on a farm in Depression-wracked Kansas. A mediocre student in high school, he attended Friends University, on Wichita's west side, where an intense study of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy enabled him to pass the examinations to enter Caltech and study under luminary scientists like Linus Pauling. Eventually Smith discovered economics and pursued graduate study in the field at University of Kansas and Harvard. This volume ends with his Camelot years at Purdue, where he began his famous work in experimental economics, nurturing his research into an unlikely new field of economics Front Matter ....Pages i-xxii Before “My” (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 1-11 Front Matter ....Pages 13-14 You Can Go Home Again (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 15-23 Enter My Father (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 25-35 From City Lights to Starlight (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 37-60 City Lights Again (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 61-87 High School, Boeing, and the War Years (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 89-109 Friends University, Caltech and University of Kansas (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 111-133 Harvard, 1952–1955 (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 135-147 Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Mother (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 149-174 Above All to Thine Own Self Be True (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 175-189 Front Matter ....Pages 191-191 The Good Land (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 193-226 The People (Vernon L. Smith)....Pages 227-262 Back Matter ....Pages 263-270