Gary N. Smith
Gary N. Smith is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College. His research on financial markets, statistical reasoning, and data mining often involves stock market anomalies, statistical fallacies, and the misuse of data. He is the author of The AI Delusion, (Oxford, 2018) and co-author (with Jay Cordes) of The 9 Pitfalls of Data Science (Oxford 2019), which won the Association of American Publishers 2020 Prose Award for Popular Science & Popular Mathematics, and The Phantom Pattern Problem (Oxford 2020). His statistical and financial research has been featured in various media, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, NPR Tech NationNBC Bay Area, CNBC, WYNC, WBBR Bloomberg Radio, Silicon Valley Insider, Motley Fool, Scientific American, Forbes, MarketWatch, MoneyCentral.msn, NewsWeek, Fast Company, OZY, and BusinessWeek.
Commentary
Why We Need to Stop Relying On Patents to Measure Innovation
Patent databases may be a smoke screen that hides the true issues, problems, and dynamics of innovation behind the illusion that innovation...
Latest news
Democracy
Elections Hinder Companies’ Access to Credit
A large body of literature has produced uncertain conclusions about how elections affect firms’ access to credit. In a wide-ranging analysis of...
Commentary
How Financial Contracting Could Help the Police Force Manage Its Aims More Effectively
Hamid Mehran proposes funded deferred pay, an incentive structure to mitigate the risk and costs of police misconduct.
Event Notes
Event Notes: “China’s Political Economy” in Review
The Stigler Center's "China Political Economy" webinar series returns Thursday, February 9. Here's a reminder of what we covered in our first...
Economic History
To Build an Equitable Economy, We Must Understand Capitalism’s Racist Heritage
American capitalism was built on racial exploitation, from the enslavement of Black people to institutionalized discrimination and its structural impact on our...
Industrial Policy
How To Ensure Industrial Policy Promotes Public Over Private Gain
Industrial policy was once so out of fashion that it was jokingly called “the policy that shall not be named.” Now it’s...
Fiscal Policy
More than Economics, Ideology Determines US Voters’ Preferences for Redistribution
The US stands out among developed economies for its comparatively low level of redistribution as a percentage of GDP. Gustavo de Souza...
Research
Stakeholder Motivations for “Private Sanctions” Against Russia
As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, a new study measures stakeholders’ desire to see their firms exit Russia and...
