Nobel Prize–winning economist Vernon Smith on the financial crisis, Adam Smith’s underrated insights, and his journey from socialist to libertarian “I remember the ’30s like it was yesterday,” says economist Vernon Smith. And he’s not kidding. In 1935, when the future Nobel Prize winner was 7 years old, his family decamped to their Kansas farm to wait out the hard times. “On the farms,” Smith explains, “you can eat.” His parents only made it to eighth grade, but “they were people who read,” and they expected their son to go to college. They got their wish—and then some. Smith’s higher...