Two Schools, One Economy: The Disconnect Between the Business and Law Schools on the Digital Economy
Wednesday, April 1, 2026 | 4:00 p.m. (PT) | Booth Auditorium, UC Berkeley Law
Business schools celebrate firms that innovate hard, scale fast, and dominate markets. Law schools are trained to distrust dominance—treating exceptional profits as a problem to be controlled, capped, or redistributed. The digital economy puts this clash in the spotlight: investors reward tech platforms for gatekeeping power, while policymakers regulate that same power as anticompetitive. This seminar maps the ideas behind the rift and explores what competition and innovation policy might look like if business and law schools cross-pollinated more seriously.
Reception to follow immediately after the lecture and Q&A.
Prof. David Teece
Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
David Teece is an economist and an authority on matters of industrial organization, technological change, and innovation, particularly as it relates to antitrust and competition policy and intellectual property. Teece has a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and has held teaching and research positions at Stanford University and Oxford University. He has received eight honorary doctorates.
Teece has over 30 years of experience as an active consultant performing economic, business, and financial consulting services to businesses and governments around the world. He has worked on matters in industries ranging from music recording to DRAMS, software, lumber, and petroleum, and has testified in both federal and state court, before Congress, and before the Federal Trade Commission, as well as in several international jurisdictions.
Prof. Nicolas Petit
European University Institute
Nicolas Petit is Professor of Competition Law at the Department of Law of the European University Institute (EUI). His research in recent years has focused on EU and US competition law, competition and innovation, law and economics, and law in a context of technological change. Nicolas Petit uses mixed approaches including law and economics, doctrinal and empirical legal methods.Nicolas Petit’s research focuses on a range of topics, including the application of economic analysis to competition law, the intersection between competition law and intellectual property, and the regulation of digital markets. He is known for his contributions to the development of the “more economic approach” to competition law and policy, which emphasizes the use of economics and empirical evidence in antitrust analysis.