Daniel J. Smith is the Director of the Political Economy Research Institute and Associate Professor of Economics in the Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University. He serves as the North American co-editor of The Review of Austrian Economics and is the President-elect of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. He also serves as the Beacon Center's Senior Fellow for Fiscal and Regulatory Policy and on the board of Beacon Impact. His academic research and policy work uses Austrian and public choice economics to analyze private and public governance institutions.

He is the co-author of Money and the Rule of Law: Generality and Predictability in Monetary Institutions (Cambridge University Press), written with Peter J. Boettke and Alexander W. Salter, and The Political Economy of Public Pensions (Cambridge University Press), written with Eileen Norcross. His research is published in academics journals, such as Public Choice, Economics of Governance, Constitutional Political Economy, and The Review of Austrian Economics, and in chapters in books published by Oxford University Press, Routledge, and Wiley-Blackwell. Smith has published numerous op-eds in outlets across the nation, including in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Investor's Business Daily, and CNBC.com. 

Daniel received his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University and a B.B.A. in economics and finance from Northwood University.