Rate My Professor Joshua Gans

Joshua Gans holds the Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and serves as Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, with cross-appointments in the Department of Economics and the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy. He earned a PhD in Economics from Stanford University in 1995 and a B.Econ (First Class Honours) with majors in Economics and Law from the University of Queensland in 1989. Before joining the University of Toronto in 2011, Gans was Professor of Management (Information Economics) at the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne, from 2000 to 2011, Associate Professor there from 1996 to 2000, and Lecturer at the School of Economics, University of New South Wales, from 1994 to 1996. He has also held visiting positions at Microsoft Research, Harvard University, and NBER.

Gans's research examines the economic drivers of innovation and scientific progress, digital strategy, antitrust policy, applied game theory, industrial organization, law and economics, and the implications of artificial intelligence. He has authored key books including Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2018, with Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb), Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022, with Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb), Economics in the Age of COVID-19 (MIT Press, 2020), The Disruption Dilemma (MIT Press, 2016), and Innovation + Equality (MIT Press, 2019, with Andrew Leigh). Notable papers include "The Product Market and the Market for Ideas: Commercialization Strategies for Technology Entrepreneurs" (Research Policy, 2003) and "When Does Start-Up Innovation Spur the Gale of Creative Destruction?" (RAND Journal of Economics, 2002), contributing to over 28,000 citations. His honors include Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2025), PROSE Award for best book in Business, Management, and Finance (2017), Roger Martin Award for Research Excellence (2016-17), and Excellence in Teaching Award, Rotman School (2012). Gans is Department Editor (Strategy) for Management Science, former Co-Editor of the International Journal of Industrial Organization, and Area Coordinator for Strategic Management at Rotman.