Paul Vaaler

Professor, John and Bruce Mooty Chair in Law & Business, Law School and Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.

Professor Vaaler is the John and Bruce Mooty Chair in Law & Business, a 50-50 joint appointment to the faculties of the Law School and Carlson School of Management's Department of Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship. Prior to coming to the University of Minnesota, he was on the faculty of Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) School of Business.

His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of business, law and politics: understanding long-term performance stability trends and their competition (antitrust) policy implications for firms in the US; understanding how migrants from developing countries remit money and ideas to fund, found and grow new businesses in developing countries with poor legal infrastructure; and how elections change the attractiveness of new democracies for lending and investment. His courses address business, legal and public policy issues associated with managing intellectual property in firms, negotiating investment projects with the governments of developing countries, and structuring public-private partnerships.

Professor Vaaler is the author and editor of books published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, MIT Press, and Routledge Press as well as journal articles published in the Academy of Management Journal, Economics Letters, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Management, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business, Organization Science, Review of Development Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Strategy Science, and other academic journals. He serves as a Senior Editor at the Global Strategy Journal and the Journal of International Business Policy. He serves as a Consulting Editor of the Journal of World Business. He serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Social Science Research Network Global Business Issues electronic journal. Professor Vaaler has also served as a consultant to firms, government agencies and international organizations, including the World Bank where he assisted in the development of strategies to attract more investment in West Africa from migrant diaspora communities.

While studying in Africa as a Fulbright Scholar in 2019-2020, Professor Vaaler was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of International Business. In 2012, he was the Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professor in Business and Development a Oxford University. An award-winning teacher and researcher, Professor Vaaler also serves as a media commentator on business, legal, and public policy issues at local, national and international print, broadcasting, and digital outlets. From 2014-2019, he was a weekly commentator on WCCO 830AM radio's Morning News with Dave Lee.

Professor Vaaler is a lawyer with private practice and government experience. He received his B.A. in History from Carleton College, his M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.