Biography

Thomas More Smith holds a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is considered an expert in the areas of labor economics, pricing, sports economics and finance, the economics of the entertainment industry, the economics of the health care industry and film finance. He is an Associate Professor in the Practice of Finance at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He regularly appears as an expert on national television and radio programming (CNN, NPR, Huffington Post) and is frequently quoted in popular press regarding trends in unemployment, inflation, trade and other

Education

  • PhD
    University of Illinois at Chicago
    1998
  • MS
    University of Illinois at Chicago
    1994
  • BS
    Illinois Wesleyan University
    1992

In the News

  • Want To Buy A House, Atlanta? Here’s Minimum Income To Do So

    September 2, 2016
    WABE
    But economist Tom Smith with Emory’s Goizueta Business School says: this change is good. Or, more accurately, it’s neither good nor bad. It simply indicates the economy re-balancing itself after the recession. Just after the housing market bubble collapsed, he says, metro Atlanta saw a typical pattern: “Rental rates start to climb, and the mortgage that you’d be required to have a house, would start to fall. Then they catch back up once the economy starts going in a good direction, and I think that’s what you’re seeing here, as well.” He adds that when it comes to costs of living, a snapshot like this survey shouldn’t be mistaken for the big picture. “Look at the cost of gasoline. Look at the average number of minutes commuting to or from your job to see how we fare, in terms of our overall standard of living, not just the rental costs or the mortgage costs.”

  • How to Solve the Gender Wage Gap in International Soccer

    July 22, 2015
    Time
    As I watched the Women’s World Cup final recently with my family, my 11-year-old son, who plays on a local soccer team, remarked that he was amazed at how quickly and how often the U.S. team scored. “Seriously, Dad, teams don’t just score like that in soccer.” Of course, he was right. The match set a record for most combined goals scored in a FIFA final for either men or women. It’s that level of action and excitement that made the game the most-watched soccer event in U.S. history.

  • Greece, like Wahlberg in The Gambler, just needs a friend — and a new currency

    July 8, 2015
    The Conversation
    On Sunday, the citizens of Greece voted No on the country’s referendum to accept a package of money in exchange for further austerity measures. Now what? Every armchair economist from Iowa to the Aegean Sea has an answer and opinion, including, as it happens, me. Although I’m an actual economist, I’m thinking about the events of Greece as they relate to the plot of a recent movie, The Gambler, starring Mark Wahlberg. It occurred to me that Greece is just like Wahlberg’s character Jim Bennett.

  • Unemployment and Jobs

    December 19, 2014
    GPB Media
    Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Tom Smith, of Emory’s Business School, discusses the seemingly contradictory report on Georgia’s unemployment rate, after more than 23,000 new jobs were created in November.

  • Fewer jobs in September keeps state jobless rate up

    October 21, 2014
    Atlanta (WXIA)
    "Unemployment stats reveal quite a bit about the economy and is one of the key indicators of what's happening in the economy," said Smith of Emory's Goizueta Business School. "No single statistic ever tells the whole story." Dr. Smith added. Deal has pointed to job creation statistics. Since Deal became governor, state data shows Georgia created more than 283,000 new jobs . But the loss of 2800 jobs in September kept the state's unemployment rate on the ugly side, Smith said. Democrat Jason Carter, who is running against Deal, called the jobless rate "absolutely unacceptable."

  • GOP Senate Candidate David Perdue: ‘Don’t Worry About That Unemployment Number’

    August 26, 2014
    The Huffington Post
    In a recent interview with WXIA in Atlanta, Emory University labor economist Tom Smith also explained that the unemployment rate may stay high even if more jobs are created. “If you have growth in the number of job opportunities, sometimes this can bring people out of the woodwork,” said Smith. “So people who were not in the labor force enter into the labor force. And as a result you can have upticks in the unemployment rate as your economy is starting to take off.”

  • Replacement refs bad business for NFL?

    September 7, 2012
    CNN
    On the other side of the coin, sports economy experts like Dr. Thomas Smith of Emory University see Goodell as someone just doing his job. He says the commissioner shouldn't be judged by either this lockout or the previous player lockout.

  • 'Moneyball' for football? Not likely

    February 4, 2012
    ATLANTA (WXIA)
    "Unlike baseball, in football you can win from the defense, and you can score points from the defense," said Emory Economics professor Thomas Smith. "Unlike baseball, football has special teams; and so what happens is you have way too many moving parts to try and dissect it... to try and break it down to an atomic level that's really easy to manage. It's very difficult to piece together a winning team the way that the Oakland A's did."

  • American Economy is Better Than You Think

    June 6, 2011
    Emory University
    Despite the poor job-creation numbers and rise in unemployment, the American economy is actually growing. Goizueta Business School at Emory University Labor and Finance expert Tom Smith says you need to look at the overall trends rather than month-to-month.

  • Money for Roads not Reducing Unemployment

    January 11, 2010
    CBS News
    "As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many. It may well be employing lots of people but those two things are very different."

  • Atlanta returns $1.3 million in unspent workforce development money

    October 24, 2018
    The Atlanta-Journal Constiution
    The skill sets of those who can use workforce training can vary greatly, said Tom Smith, a finance professor and economist at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. In some cases, Smith said, potential workers have to be trained about how to write a resume, interview, dress for work or respond to superiors. In other cases, the training can be job-specific, such as teaching database entry or welding. He said the training can help anticipate areas where jobs may be going away, to prepare workers for the positions that will replace the ones they have.

  • Amazon headquarters decision: It’s not Atlanta

    November 13, 2018
    AJC
    “I am very disappointed,” said economist Thomas Smith of Emory University. “If your kid doesn’t get into Harvard, do you say, ‘Well, at least we won’t have all those expenses.’” Still, metro Atlanta’s economic future is bright, he said. “We’ve still got some juice.”