03/24/2026

Spotlight on James L. Smith

USAEE NEWSLETTER | SPRING 2026

This is the latest article in a series featuring distinguished USAEE members reflecting on their careers and their involvement in the USAEE community.

Being involved in USAEE has meant many things to me, mainly falling into the categories of “work hard” and “play hard.” It is difficult to sustain the first without the second, and hard to justify the second without the first. USAEE provides ample opportunity for both. When I first joined IAEE, the USAEE had yet to be established and energy economics was very much a niche field. The major journals had only recently appeared (Resource & Energy Economics in 1978, Energy Economics in 1979, and The Energy Journal—our flagship—in 1980). In most universities few colleagues were available with whom to debate and share ideas, even fewer textbooks and teaching materials existed—let alone students who would use them, and opportunities to present one’s research to the broader world were limited.

IAEE/USAEE changed that and gave greater purpose to one’s work by creating a community—large, diverse, and comprehensive in the scope of its interests and activities. The resources and opportunities created by both USAEE and IAEE, mainly in the form of publications and conferences, both spurred and supported my research effort. I returned home from each conference or meeting with renewed enthusiasm, fresh ideas, and greater confidence in the success of our collective enterprise.

Of course, on each occasion I also made new friends. As this network of USAEE/IAEE buddies grew, I developed dear friendships as well as productive alliances. And I enjoyed the travel, the programs, and the interesting venues that hosted our annual conference. (How many recall that Bob Dylan performed at the theater next door during our Tulsa conference in 2016? Or the reception at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh during our 2015 conference? Or the mis-location of our plenary hall to a New York theater in 2014?) Although the Covid-cancellation of the 2020 conference taught us (like Joni Mitchell before) that “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” we have survived! And now that we have “it” back we appreciate it all the more! Thank you, USAEE, for an eventful ride.

James L. Smith (jsmith@mail.cox.smu.edu) is Professor Emeritus, Department of Finance, and Cary M. Maguire Chair of Oil and Gas Management (Retired) at Southern Methodist University's Edwin L. Cox School of Business. Professor Smith has specialized in energy studies since receiving his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977 and has published many scholarly articles on the oil and gas industry. He is a Past-President of both the United States Association for Energy Economics (2016) and the International Association for Energy Economics (2021), and for sixteen years served as Co-Editor of the Association’s Energy Journal. Professor Smith was named a Senior Fellow of USAEE in 2007 and in 2024 he received IAEE’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Profession of Energy Economics and to its Literature. In addition to academic work, Dr. Smith provides expert consulting services to energy companies, regulatory agencies, and government officials in the U.S. and abroad.