JOSHUA GANS

JOSHUA GANS

Joshua Gans is a Professor of Strategic Management and holder of the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto (with a cross appointment in the Department of Economics). Since 2013, he has also been Area Coordinator of Strategic Management. Joshua is also Chief Economist of the University of Toronto's Creative Destruction Lab and the start-up, Revlo. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Center for Digital Business at MIT. Prior to 2011, he was the foundation Professor of Management (Information Economics) at the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne and prior to that he was at the School of Economics, University of New South Wales. In 2011, Joshua was a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research (New England). Joshua holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an honors degree in economics from the University of Queensland. In 2012, Joshua was appointed as a Research Associate of the NBER in the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program.

At Rotman, he teaches MBA and Commerce students Network and Digital Market Strategy and Entrepreneurial Strategy. He has also co-authored (with Stephen King and Robin Stonecash) the Australasian edition of Greg Mankiw's Principles of Economics (published by Cengage), Core Economics for Managers (Cengage), Finishing the Job (MUP) and Parentonomics (New South/MIT Press). In 2012 he published, Information Wants to be Shared (Harvard Business Review Press), and in 2016, The Disruption Dilemma (MIT Press).

Scholarly Publishing and its Discontents was published in 2017.

While Joshua's research interests are varied he has developed specialities in the nature of technological competition and innovation, economic growth, publishing economics, industrial organisation and regulatory economics. This has culminated in publications in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, RAND Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Public Economics, and the Journal of Regulatory Economics. Joshua serves as an associate editor of Management Science and the Journal of Industrial Economics and is on the editorial boards of the BE Journals of Economic Analysis and Policy, Economic Analysis and Policy, Games and the Review of Network Economics. In 2007, Joshua was awarded the Economic Society of Australia’s Young Economist Award. In 2008, Joshua was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia. Details of his research activities can be found here. In 2011, Joshua (along with Fiona Murray of MIT) received a grant for almost $1 million from the Sloan Foundation to explore the Economics of Knowledge Contribution and Distribution.

On the consulting side, Joshua is managing director of Core Economic Research and an Academic Associate with The Brattle Group. In the past, Joshua has worked with several established consulting firms including London Economics, Frontier Economics and Charles River Associates. He has also been retained by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Federal Trade Commission where he worked on expert testimony in several abuse of market power cases as well as on issues in telecommunications network competition. Overall his consulting experience covers energy (gas and electricity markets), telecommunications, financial services and banking, pharmaceuticals and rail transport.  

Speech topics

Learning to Adapt & Thrive in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

Today’s machines are gaining the ability to learn from data and make sophisticated predictions—more cheaply, and more accurately, than human beings. Like the advent of the Internet, machine learning is set to affect foundational changes to our lives. From navigation to the Internet of Things, manufacturing to agriculture, health care, deep learning will open many doors. Josh Gans illustrates the sweeping power of machines and breaks down why it all matters. How can we take advantage of the growing market for A.I.? How can we allocate capital and investments today to best prepare for tomorrow? How do we prepare for the disruptions to long-standing industries? No matter who you are or where you work—a company, an investor, a university or government—Josh will draw you a roadmap to adapt, and thrive, throughout this transformation.

Books

Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Disruption resulting from the proliferation of AI is coming. The authors of the bestselling Prediction Machines can help you prepare.

"This is a book that leaders of all types of organizations should read. It explains the enormous size of the AI opportunity and the challenges in getting there.."


Dominic Barton, Chair, Rio Tintoformer Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company

Economics in the Age of COVID-19 

A guide to the pandemic economy: essential reading about the long-term implications of our current crisis.

eBook available now

Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future That Is More Star Trek Than Terminator

Economist Joshua Gans and policy maker Andrew Leigh make the case that pursuing innovation does not mean giving up on equality―precisely the opposite. In this book, they outline ways that society can become both more entrepreneurial and more egalitarian.

Survive and Thrive: Winning Against Strategic Threats to Your Business

Whether big or small, companies incessantly face challenges that can threaten their bottom line and even their survival. These threats keep corporate leaders up at night. What can companies do to stay alive?

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

"What does AI mean for your business? Read this book to find out." -- Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

Scholarly Publishing and its Discontents: An economist's perspective on dealing with market power and its consequences

This book examines the emergence, consequences and remedies for market power in scholarly publishing.

The Disruption Dilemma

An expert in management takes on the conventional wisdom about disruption, looking at companies that proved resilient and offering managers tools for survival.

Information Wants to Be Shared

Information is much more complicated than that. What information really wants—what makes it more valuable, useful, and immediate, Joshua Gans argues—is to be shared.

Parentonomics: An Economist Dad Looks at Parenting

What every parent needs to know about negotiating, incentives, outsourcing, and other strategies to solve the economic management problem that is parenting.

Substack

Joshua Gans' Newsletter

A range of topics, from pandemic economics to machine learning, to innovation and entrepreneurship. SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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