Dr. Daniel G. Arce M.

The University of Texas at Dallas supports the Ashbel Smith Professorship. Dr. Ashbel Smith was the first president of the UT System Board of Regents. He had a long and distinguished career in medicine, education and public service. During his term on the Board of Regents, Smith was dedicated to recruiting the best faculty members available and to developing a curriculum befitting a “university of the first class.” Smith became known as both the “father of Texas medicine” and the “father of The University of Texas.”


“Economics is almost unique in that it allows you to produce research that is both rigorous and relevant. I can literally get my research ideas by looking at the world around me. I have used game theory to address topics as diverse as business ethics and counterterrorism. When it comes to the classroom, I believe that teaching is a commitment to provide a transformative experience.”

Dr. Daniel Arce, an economist, specializes in game theory, business ethics, collective action, conflict, corporate governance, global public goods, leadership and terrorism. He has published more than 60 articles in these areas.  His courses include game theory, microeconomics, managerial economics, business ethics, financial crises, global public goods, Latin American economic development, econometrics and statistics.

Arce has been a faculty member in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at UT Dallas since August 2007 and has worked as an educator for 23 years. In 2013, he received the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.

Arce was appointed to head the economics program in September 2013 and previously served as program head from February 2009 to August 2011.

Before coming to UT Dallas, he served as the McCallum Distinguished Professor of Economics at Rhodes College from 2000 to 2007, and Professor and Thomas Fellow of Teaching Excellence at the University of Alabama from 1991 to 2000. He also has taught at the Universidad Católica in Lima and the Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires.

Arce has been awarded two Fulbright Grants for study and research in Latin America.

He is a co-editor of The Southern Economic Journal and a former editor of Defence and Peace Economics, of which he is a member of the editorial board.  He also serves on the editorial review team for the teaching business ethics section of the Journal of Business Ethics.

Arce has a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned his master’s degree at Western Michigan University, where he was subsequently named a Distinguished Alumnus, and his bachelor’s degree at Olivet College.  He was a Fulbright Student in the Master’s in Economics program at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá.