Timothy Bresnahan specializes in industrial organization, applied econometrics, and the economics of technology. He is an expert on the empirical measurement of market power, and on testing models of imperfect competition. Professor Bresnahan served as deputy assistant attorney general and chief economist of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1999 to 2000.
Professor Bresnahan has testified on liability and damages issues in numerous antitrust, competition, intellectual property, and product liability matters. Notably, he provided trial testimony in the bellwether consumer class action In re Whirlpool Front-Loading Washer Products Liability Litigation. He has coauthored several amicus briefs presented before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Bresnahan has also served as the economic expert on a variety of mergers, including T-Mobile/Sprint, Sysco/U.S. Foods, Google’s acquisitions of AdMob and ITA Software, Intel’s acquisition of McAfee, and CoStar’s acquisition of LoopNet. His international work includes a regulatory inquiry involving credit card fees charged by New Zealand’s four largest banks as well as testimony before DG Comp on mergers.
Professor Bresnahan has chaired Stanford University’s Economics Department and directed the Stanford Computer Industry Project. He currently directs the Center on Employment and Economic Growth at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He also serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Author of more than one hundred scholarly publications, Professor Bresnahan was a founding editor of the Annual Review of Economics and an associate editor of the RAND Journal of Economics. In 2017, Professor Bresnahan received a BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for “founding and shaping the field of empirical industrial organisation.” Who’s Who Legal has recognized him as a competition thought leader and leading competition economist.
