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Vernon L. Smith, the renowned economist and Nobel laureate, credits F.A. Hayek, an influential economist and philosopher, as a major source of inspiration. Smith particularly admires Hayek's profound insights into the spontaneous order emerging from individual actions in complex systems. Hayek's notion of decentralized knowledge and price signals resonated deeply with Smith's own research on experimental economics and market institutions, shaping Smith's intellectual trajectory and contributions to economic science.