Brock Smith, PhD, is an associate director with the Research Department at the Milken Institute. Prior to joining the Milken Institute, he spent 10 years in academia as a post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University and an associate professor of economics at Montana State University. His research has focused on environmental economics and natural resource economics, particularly the economic and social effects of natural resource booms. He has published research in several premier journals, including the Journal of Development Economics and the American Economic Review. He received an award for best publication in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in 2018. Smith received his PhD in economics from the University of California, Davis in 2013.