Nathaniel W. Smith

I am an Assistant Professor in Economics at Sweet Briar College. 
 
 My research focuses on entrepreneurship, international trade, and political economy. I study the entrepreneur as the market system's driving force and the interaction between the entrepreneur and government.  My dissertation is titled "The Market Process: Entrepreneurship, Intervention, and the Role of the State.” My committee chair was Christopher Coyne.
 
My article "Alert-Judgment: Ford's Entrepreneurial Five-Dollar Day" is published in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics (December 2021). "A Robust Analysis of Trade Policy: The Chicken & Lumber Wars" is now available at the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy (October 2022). I am currently developing projects exploring the relationship between government and the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur’s interaction with trade policy, and market economy institutions. 

I received a B.A. in history from Michigan State University (1999), an M.A. in economics & entrepreneurship education from the University of Delaware (2017), and an M.A. (2020) and Ph.D. (2022) in economics from George Mason University. Before pursuing a Ph.D., I was a high school teacher at Chesaning Union High School (2010–18), where I taught economics, entrepreneurship, math and founded an Entrepreneurship Club.