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On Thursday, the economics department held its annual event honoring the ideas of Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher and economist widely considered to be the father of modern economics.

This year is the 250th anniversary of Smith’s landmark book, The Wealth of Nations, which is a fundamental work in classical economics and offers one of the first accounts of what builds nations’ wealth.

Economics Professor Abby Hall opened the event with an end-of-year review of UTampa’s Adam Smith Society, which is a faculty-mentored honors society for students studying economics.

“We’re not engaging Adam Smith merely as a historical figure, nor are we treating his writings as artifacts to be admired from a distance,” said Hall. “We are trying to carry forward a mode of inquiry that Smith himself exemplified.”

Hall said that one component of the society’s programming is an op-ed workshop that introduces students to writing opinion articles through an economic lens. Several pieces that she’s co-authored with undergraduate students Patrik Ward ’27 and Chrysanthi Skaliotis ’26 have landed in national media outlets, such as The Hill.

The keynote speaker Thursday was Peter Boettke, distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University near Washington, D.C. Boettke spoke about how Adam Smith’s ideas have evolved over the last 250 years, such as how world trade has drastically bolstered the economies of nations around the world.