Abhishek Nagaraj
Professor Abhishek Nagaraj is an economist and operations management scholar with leading expertise in artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and innovation-intensive markets.
His research focuses on how firms develop, deploy, and scale advanced technologies, including machine learning and generative AI, and how these technologies affect productivity, organizational design, labor outcomes, and competitive dynamics. His work integrates economic theory, large-scale empirical analysis, and deep institutional knowledge of technology-driven industries.
Professor Nagaraj is currently an associate professor in the Management and Organizations (MORS) and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation group at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. As the Director of the Data Innovation and AI Lab (DIAL) at UC Berkeley, Professor Nagaraj works with students and collaborators on a number of topics on innovation economics, the economics of digital systems, and AI.
He is a sought-after advisor for the private sector, assisting early-stage startups with go-to-market strategies and helping large firms navigate the complexities of their data and innovation pipelines. He is also an expert in issues around copyright and intellectual property as they relate to AI systems.
Professor Nagaraj’s research has been published in top economics and management journals, including Review of Economics and Statistics, Management Science, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. His work is widely cited in academic and policy discussions on artificial intelligence, innovation, and technology markets, and he regularly presents to academic audiences, policymakers, and industry leaders focused on AI and digital transformation.
Professor Nagaraj is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His work has been recognized with over half a dozen prestigious honors, including the BPS Wiley Blackwell Outstanding Dissertation Award, the Technology and Innovation Management (TIM) Best Dissertation Award, and the Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship.
He earned his PhD in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management within the Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management (TIES) group. He also holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and a B.Tech in Computer Science from the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP).