About

Scott Stern is the David Sarnoff Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research explores how innovation and entrepreneurship differ from traditional economic activities, focusing on their implications for strategy and policy. Stern's work in the economics of innovation and entrepreneurship includes studying entrepreneurial strategy, innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems, and innovation policy and management. He has investigated the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship, the role of institutions in shaping scientific and technical knowledge, and the drivers and consequences of entrepreneurial strategy. Stern has worked extensively with practitioners, advising start-ups, growth firms, governments, and stakeholders on issues related to competitiveness and regional performance. He has developed popular elective courses such as Entrepreneurial Strategy, co-founded the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, and contributed to initiatives like the Social Progress Index and the US Cluster Mapping Project. Stern began his career at MIT, teaching from 1995 to 2001, and held positions at the Kellogg School of Management and the Brookings Institution before returning to MIT in 2009. He is the director and co-founder of the Innovation Policy Working Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Stern holds a BA in economics from New York University and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. His work has earned him several honors, including the Seegal Faculty Prize and the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Sociology
• Economics
• Marketing
• Political Science
• Ecology
• Finance
• Environmental resource management
• Microeconomics
• Industrial organization
• Geography
• Economic geography
• Positive economics
• Data science
• Knowledge management
• Economic system
• Epistemology
• Biology
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• The State of American Entrepreneurship: New Estimates of the Quantity and Quality of Entrepreneurship for 32 US States, 1988–2014

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 165 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Economics

  Assessing the state of American entrepreneurship requires not simply counting the quantity but also the initial quality of new ventures. Combining comprehensive business registries and predictive analytics, we present estimates of entrepreneurial quantity and quality from 1988 to 2014. Rather than a secular pattern of declining business dynamism, our quality-adjusted measures follow a cyclical pattern sensitive to economic and capital market conditions. Consistent with the role of investment cycles as a driver of high-growth entrepreneurship, our results highlight the role of economic and institutional conditions as a driver of both initial entrepreneurial quality and the scaling of new ventures over time.

  DOI

• Homo Entrepreneuricus

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2026-04-14

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Foundations of Bayesian Entrepreneurship

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2026-04-14

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Unleashing 21st Century Technologies: Policy and Management in Life Sciences

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  Breakthrough innovation has often been attributed to major advances in foundational technologies and their application in various research fields. Examples include the development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the agricultural sector, the adoption of gene- editing tools such as CRISPR in life science research, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in drug discovery and material science, among others. The resulting near-exponential growth in the production of science, as well as groundbreaking innovation, could be a potential game-changer in many industries, particularly in life science-driven sectors such as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Not unexpectedly, firms and various organizations may strategically respond to such dynamics with novel institutional and policy approaches. This symposium will assemble five studies that offer diverse perspectives in relation to this phenomenon. These studies are primarily co- authored by young scholars with interests and expertise in investigating questions surrounding organizations’ strategic responses to the entry of such technologies, ranging from AI drug development by Kao and Stern, research on plants with new genomic techniques (NGTs) by Hofmeister, Ziedonis, and Zyontz, shelved drug development projects by Hofmeister, advocacy groups and rare disease research by Chandra and Furman, to the integration of modern biomedical science with traditional medicine by Ryu and Yao. A primary objective of this symposium is for the audience to better discern the commonalities among the presenters’ diverse settings of study, which relate to the question of how scientists, innovators, policymakers, as well as the general public make sense of technological advances and seek to utilize them to enhance the rate and direction of science in their respective fields, especially when these fields have historically been underrepresented. Enhancing Innovation or Just Hype? The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Drug Development Author: Jennifer Kao; University of California Los Angeles Author: Ariel Dora Stern; Commercial Regulation and Scientific Brain Drain: Evidence from NGT in Commercial Biotechnology Author: Elisabeth Hofmeister; Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Author: Samantha Zyontz; Boston University Author: Rosemarie Ziedonis; Boston University Strategic Reserves: Harnessing Shelved Innovation Author: Elisabeth Hofmeister; Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Can Movements Move Science? Exploring the Impacts of Rare Disease Advocacy on the Rate of Science Author: Kevin Chandra; Boston University Author: Jeff Furman; Boston University Traditional Wisdom to Innovation: Diffusion of Trapped Knowledge in Oriental Medicine Author: Joey Ryu; Harvard Business School Author: Randol Yao; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  PublisherDOI

• Accelerating Innovation Ecosystems: The Promise and Challenges of Regional Innovation Engines

  Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy · 2024 · 25 citations

  • Business
  • Environmental resource management
  • Environmental science

  Motivated by the recent establishment of major US federal programs seeking to harness the potential of regional innovation ecosystems, we assess the promise and challenges of place-based innovation policy interventions. Relative to traditional research grants, place-based innovation policy interventions are not directed toward a specific research project but rather aim to reshape interactions among researchers and other stakeholders within a given geographic location. The most recent such policy—the National Science Foundation “Engines” program—is designed to enhance the productivity and impact of the investments made within a given regional innovation ecosystem. The impact of such an intervention depends on whether, in its implementation, it induces change in the behavior of individuals and the ways in which knowledge is distributed and translated within that ecosystem. Although this logic is straightforward, from it follows an important insight: innovation ecosystem interventions—engines—are more likely to succeed when they account for the current state of a given regional ecosystem (in terms of latent capacities, current bottlenecks, and economic and institutional constraints) and when they involve extended commitments by multiple stakeholders within that ecosystem. Beyond outlining the key dependencies for place-based innovation policy interventions, we also discuss opportunities for real-time assessment and course correction of such interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Theory-Driven Entrepreneurial Search

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Theory-Driven Entrepreneurial Search

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-04-01 · 3 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  How should theory-based entrepreneurs search for strategies to implement their ideas?The theory-based view of strategy posits that decision-makers hold theories about their environment premised on beliefs that should be actively tested.This causal framework, which underlies the theory-based view, also has implications for entrepreneurial search: the process by which entrepreneurs uncover strategies to implement their ideas.In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model where entrepreneurs update their beliefs as they conduct entrepreneurial search.We find several optimal behaviors for theory-based entrepreneurs such as reverting to a previous strategy after finding a relatively poor strategy and continuing to search after finding a relatively good strategy, which are missing when entrepreneurs lack such a theory-based approach.As these predictions align with examples of successful entrepreneurs, our findings both provide a method to empirically identify skilled entrepreneurs and demonstrate the usefulness of applying the theory-based view to entrepreneurial behavior more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Theory-Driven Entrepreneurial Search

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Theory-Based Entrepreneurial Search

  Strategy Science · 2024-10-22 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  How should Theory-based entrepreneurs search for strategies to implement their ideas? The theory-based view of strategy posits that decision makers hold key conjectures about their path to success and use theory to understand and test beliefs underlying those conjectures. This causal framework also has implications for entrepreneurial search: the process by which entrepreneurs uncover strategies to implement their ideas. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model where entrepreneurs update their beliefs as they conduct entrepreneurial search. We find several optimal behaviors for Theory-based entrepreneurs such as reverting to a previous strategy after finding a relatively poor strategy and continuing to search after finding a relatively good strategy, which are missing when entrepreneurs lack such a theory-based approach. As our theoretical predictions align with examples of successful entrepreneurs, our findings both provide a method to empirically identify Theory-based entrepreneurs and demonstrate the usefulness of applying the theory-based view to entrepreneurial behavior more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Of Academics and Creative Destruction: Startup Advantage in the Process of Innovation

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  articleSenior author

  What is the role of startups within the innovation ecosystem? Since 2000, startups have grown in their share of commercializing research from top U.S. universities; however, prior work has little to say on the particular advantages of startup ventures in the innovation process relative to more traditional alternatives such as academia and established private-sector incumbents. We develop a simple model of startup advantage based on private information held by the initial inventor, and generate predictions related to the value and impact of startup innovation. We then explore these predictions using patents granted within the regional ecosystems of top-25 research universities from 2000 to 2015. Our results show a significant startup advantage in terms of forward citations and outlier-patent rates. Further, startup innovation is both more original and more general than innovation by incumbent firms. Moreover, startups that survive to become “scale-ups” quickly grow to dominate their regional innovation ecosystems. Our findings have important implications for innovation policy.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Josh Lerner

  Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

  142 shared

• Jorge Guzmán

  97 shared

• Catherine Fazio

  Boston University

  73 shared

• Adam B. Jaffe

  Sydney Children's Hospital

  68 shared

• Yupeng Liu

  Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products

  67 shared

• Joshua S. Gans

  University of Toronto

  64 shared

• RJ Andrews

  58 shared

• Rebecca Henderson

  42 shared

Awards & honors

• 2026 Samuel M. Seegal Faculty Prize
• 2024 Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching
• 2021 Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award