Jennifer Kao

Jennifer Kao is an assistant professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She co-teaches business strategy to MBA students. Her research interests are in the economics of innovation and science, firm strategy and health care.

Her work seeks to understand how information and regulation shape firms’ incentives to innovate. For example, a recent project explores how publicly available scientific information shapes the rate, direction and profitability of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. Other projects examine how drug approval regulation shapes firms’ market entry strategies.

Kao received her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard, where she was a National Bureau of Economic Research Predoctoral Fellow in the Economics of Health and Aging and the International Network on the Value of Medical Research. She holds a B.S. in business administration from UC Berkeley and M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Harvard University (2013 — 2019)
• Master's degree London School of Economics and Political Science (2011 — 2012)
• Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) University of California, Berkeley (2006 — 2010)

Companies

• Assistant Professor UCLA Anderson School of Management (2019)
• PhD Candidate Harvard University (2013 — 2019)
• Economics Research Assistant Harvard Business School (2014 — 2014)
• Economist London School of Economics Growth Commission (2012 — 2013)
• Economics Research Assistant The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (2012 — 2012)
• Economics Research Assistant, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics UC Berkeley (2009 — 2011)
• Economics Research Assistant University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business (2010 — 2011)
• Research Assistant Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley (2008 — 2009)
• Corporate Development Intern KQED (2007 — 2007)

Working Papers

• “Charted Territory: Evidence from Mapping the Cancer Genome and R&D Decisions in the Pharmaceutical Industry”
• “The Impact of Health Care Financing on Research Outcomes: Evidence from Academic Medical Centers” (with Pierre Azoulay and Misty Heggeness)
• “Pharmaceutical Regulation and Off-Label Uses”