Benny Owen Smith, Ph.D.
- Economics, Associate Professor
General Information
Additional Contact Information
To make a one-on-one appointment with Dr. Smith, please use calendly: https://bensresearch.com/calendar
Teaching Interests
Dr. Smith's current teaching responsibilities include SQL, Databases, and Data Cleaning for Data Scientists, Data Analysis from Scratch, and Industrial Organization. Previously, he has taught Micro Principles, Intermediate Microeconomics, and Essential Concepts (MBA).Dr. Smith also serves on the Board of Directors of the Journal of Economics Teaching. As the journal's web developer, the post-acceptance production process is proudly housed in UNO's economics department.
Research Interests
Dr. Smith's research work is generally in the areas of economic education, industrial organization, urban economics or behavioral economics. Current work includes the voluntary release of patents, plant agglomeration and statistical properties of student guessing. Previous work has been published in the American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, Applied Economics, Applied Psychological Measurement, Defence and Peace Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Urban Economics, Review of Industrial Organization, The Journal of Economic Education, Education Economics, Significance, Southern Economic Journal, and Studies in Higher Education (amongst others).
Service Summary
Throughout his education, Dr. Smith ran a small software company. As a result, he is active in the open source community, particularly in areas of accounting, teaching tools and productivity software. His teaching software is used by thousands of instructors a week, impacting tens of thousands of students. Teaching software includes: 'Grade Nudge,' 'Project Based Assessment', and 'Assessment Disaggregation.'
Scholarship/Research/Creative Activity
Selected Publications
Lindsay, Kellie, Smith, Ben, White, Dustin. 2024. Beauty in the Eyes of the Beholder, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 217, 1-10.
Smith, Ben, Wooten, Jadrian. 2023. Assessing Proxies of Knowledge and Difficulty with Rubric-Based Instruments, Southern Economic Journal, 90, 2, 510-534.
Smith, Ben, White, Dustin. 2021. On Guessing: An Alternative Adjusted Positive Learning Estimator and Comparing Probability Misspecification with Monte Carlo Simulations, Applied Psychological Measurement, 45, 6, 441-458.
Smith, Ben, White, Dustin, Kuzyk, Pat , Tierney, James. 2018. Improved grade outcomes with an e-mailed 'grade nudge', The Journal of Economic Education, 49, 1, 1-7.
Cassey, Andrew , Smith, Ben. 2014. Simulating Confidence for the Ellison-Glaeser Index, Journal of Urban Economics, 81, May 2014, 85–103.