About

Daniel F. Spulber is a Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, holding the title of Elinor Hobbs Distinguished Professor of International Business and a Courtesy Professor of Law. He has served as the Research Director of the Searle Center for Law, Regulation and Economic Growth at Northwestern University School of Law. His research focuses on the intersection of law, economics, and management strategy, with particular emphasis on the theory of the firm, innovation, and international trade in technology. Spulber has contributed to the understanding of microeconomics, telecommunications networks, and corporate law through his scholarly publications. His work explores the economic analysis of legal and business issues, emphasizing the role of firms, markets, and organizations in various sectors.

Research topics

• Economics
• Political Science
• Industrial organization
• Microeconomics
• Law
• Market economy
• Business
• Econometrics

Selected publications

• Knowledge as Output and as Input: Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How Does Vertical Integration Affect Incentives to Innovate?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Freemium Pricing Strategy and the Opportunity Cost of Time

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Firm Matching in the Market for Technology: Business Stealing and Business Creation*

  Journal of Industrial Economics · 2023-10-31 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We propose an empirical framework for studying the prevalence of business creation and business stealing in technology transfers from the effect of technological overlap and product market overlap. We estimate the model on a new dataset that tracks interactions in the market for technology between publicly held US companies. Product market overlap has a negative effect on matching patterns that is suggestive of business stealing while technological proximity has a positive effect that is consistent with business creation. We assess the relevance of IP rights in deterring undesirable technology adoptions and discuss the suitability of alternative strategies of technology exchange.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Antitrust and Innovation Competition

  Journal of Antitrust Enforcement · 2022 · 22 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Industrial organization
  • Economics

  Abstract Innovation competition presents challenges for antitrust law and enforcement policy. Innovation has generated changes in the nature of competition as firms introduce new transaction techniques, product designs, and production processes. Innovation competition is driving the ‘Business Revolution’ in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, services, and financial technology. Transaction innovation in online platforms and multi-sided markets has raised antitrust concerns about anticompetitive conduct, vertical restraints, consumer privacy, and barriers to entrepreneurship. The article argues that although antitrust policy makers recognize the importance of innovation competition, they need to update their economic frameworks. Antitrust policy makers need to move beyond traditional analysis based on the twin frameworks of perfect competition and imperfect competition. The article provides an introduction to the emerging Economics of Technology & Innovation and examines some implications for antitrust policy. First, antitrust policy should shift its focus from price competition without technological change to address non-price aspects of innovation competition. Secondly, antitrust policy should apply economic analysis that recognizes the critical role of Intellectual Property and technology standards in innovation competition. Thirdly, antitrust policy toward horizontal and vertical mergers should consider developments in the economic analysis of innovation competition.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Measuring the Private and Social Returns to R&D: Unintended Spillovers versus Technology Markets

  Journal of Political Economy · 2022 · 31 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Microeconomics
  • Econometrics

  The canonical approach to measuring private and social returns to R&D assumes diffusion through spillovers. We develop a general framework that allows R&D to diffuse through both spillovers and voluntary technology transfers. To operationalize the framework, we create a data set of interactions in the market for technology between publicly held US firms. We use changes in tax incentives for R&D to identify causal effects. Taking market channels into account decreases the observed difference between social and private returns to R&D as compared with the canonical approach. The analysis suggests significant gains from trade in markets for technology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Link Compustat – USPTO Patent Assignment Dataset

  University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) · 2022-03-18

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  This page provides the data resulting from linking assignees and assignors in the USPTO Patent Assignment Dataset to Compustat gvkeys. We work with a version of the USPTO PAD that was gracefully shared with us by Stuart Graham. Such version precedes by one year the first release available at the USPTO website (https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/research-datasets/patent-assignment-dataset). The version that we use covers 5,534,135 transactions recorded at the USPTO between January 1970 and January 2013 (inclusive). While the first transaction date is January 1970, the number of transactions recorded in the initial years is negligible. Data coverage seems sufficient for the years 1981-2012. If you use the code or data, please cite the following two papers: Arque-Castells, P., and Spulber, D. (2022). Measuring the Private and Social Returns to R&D: Unintended Spillovers versus Technology Markets. Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1086/719908 Arqué Castells, Pere and Spulber, Daniel F., Firm Matching in the Market for Technology: Business Stealing and Business Creation (September 17, 2021). Northwestern Law & Econ Research Paper No. 18-14, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3041558 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3041558

  PublisherDOI

• Issue Information

  Journal of Economics & Management Strategy · 2022-08-01

  paratextOpen access

  US$1,181 (Rest of World), €768 (Europe), £604 (UK).Prices are exclusive of tax.Asia-Pacifi c GST,

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Link Compustat – USPTO Patent Assignment Dataset

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2022-03-18

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  This page provides the data resulting from linking assignees and assignors in the USPTO Patent Assignment Dataset to Compustat gvkeys. We work with a version of the USPTO PAD that was gracefully shared with us by Stuart Graham. Such version precedes by one year the first release available at the USPTO website (https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/research-datasets/patent-assignment-dataset). The version that we use covers 5,534,135 transactions recorded at the USPTO between January 1970 and January 2013 (inclusive). While the first transaction date is January 1970, the number of transactions recorded in the initial years is negligible. Data coverage seems sufficient for the years 1981-2012. If you use the code or data, please cite the following two papers: Arque-Castells, P., and Spulber, D. (2022). Measuring the Private and Social Returns to R&D: Unintended Spillovers versus Technology Markets. Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1086/719908 Arqué Castells, Pere and Spulber, Daniel F., Firm Matching in the Market for Technology: Business Stealing and Business Creation (September 17, 2021). Northwestern Law & Econ Research Paper No. 18-14, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3041558 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3041558

  PublisherDOI

• How Does Vertical Integration Affect Incentives to Innovate?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Richard A. Epstein

  Northwestern University

  92 shared

• F. Scott Kieff

  George Washington University

  84 shared

• J. Gregory Sidak

  United States Patent and Trademark Office

  50 shared

• Christopher S. Yoo

  37 shared

• Andrew Caplin

  20 shared

• David Besanko

  Northwestern University

  10 shared

• Herbert Hovenkamp

  University of Pennsylvania

  9 shared

• Pere Arqué‐Castells

  University of Groningen

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• Elinor Hobbs Distinguished Professor of International Busine…