Weatherhead School’s Roman Sheremata wins $50,000 prize for early-career economists

Roman Sheremeta, assistant professor of economics, is the 2018 recipient of the Vernon L. Smith Ascending Scholar Prize from the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics (IFREE).

About the prize

Named after Vernon L. Smith—a social scientist and 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences—the $50,000 prize seeks to inspire early-career scholars who may use the funds to advance social science in whatever manner they choose. “The Smith Prize hopes to inspire recipients, early in their careers, to set lofty goals for themselves as social-science theorists, practitioners, colleagues, mentors and truth seekers,” according to a press release from IFREE. “Sheremeta’s prolific, highly influential scholarship has marked him as an exceptional early-career scholar.”

About Sheremata

Sheremeta’s research into behavior in contests and tournaments has applications for sports management, research and development, patent races, military strategy, and political campaigns. Smith’s career is celebrated for its explorations of the theoretical foundations in economics, social science, and science quantifiable impacts in transforming economics into an experimental and more empirical discipline. Earlier this year, Sheremeta and Smith co-authored a paper on the role of the Protestant Reformation on the economic development of Europe. Sheremeta serves as the associate editor of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and is a research affiliate at the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University, where he was previously an associate professor of economics. He is also an associate fellow at the Purdue University Teaching Academy.