Erik W. Matson (PhD, George Mason University) is the Gibbons Fellow in Economics and a Research Associate in the Busch School. He is, additionally, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and the Co-Director of the Adam Smith Program at George Mason University. 

His research, which has been widely published in academic journals, focuses on the interplay between ethics, theology, and economic thought, especially in eighteenth-century Britain. He is the co-author with Jordan Ballor of A History of Christian Political Economy: From the Patristics to the Present (B&H Academic, 2026), co-editor with Ballor of Sources in Christian Political Economy: A Reader (B&H Academic, 2026), and the author of New Paternalism Meets Older Wisdom: Reflections from Smith and Hume on Rationality, Welfare, and Behavioural Economics (Institute for Economic Affairs, 2024). 

He was awarded the 2022 Novak Award by the Acton Institute for “outstanding research in the fields of ethics, politics, and economics."