Suzanne Scotchmer


Suzanne Scotchmer was an American professor of law, economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and also a noted author on many economic subjects. She earned her B.A. from University of Washington magna cum laude in 1970, her M.A. in statistics from UC Berkeley in 1979, and her PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 1980.

Biography

Scotchmer was raised in Pelican, Alaska, where her grandparents homesteaded after failing as gold rushers.
Scotchmer held visiting and teaching positions at Harvard University, University of Auckland, Cergy-Pontoise University, Tel Aviv University, Pantheon-Sorbonne University, the University of Toronto Law School, University of Southern California, New School of Economics, Moscow, and the Stockholm School of Economics. She also has held research fellowships at Yale University and Stanford University. She also served on editorial boards of American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and the Journal of Public Economics. Scotchmer served on various committees of the National Research Council and was a member of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy. The Department of Justice used her as a consultant on antitrust. She was a fellow of the Econometrics Society.
She was most renowned for her contributions on economic literature on subjects ranging from intellectual property and innovation to game theory. She was considered one of the leading and most prominent experts on patent law and incentives for R&D and game theory. Her pieces were cited several times on work in the subject. She served as a scholar in residence at the US appellate court and has been called to testify as an expert in patent matters.
In 2017 The Econometric Society published a book recalling her life and work with a collection of 11 of her best-known papers.

Death

Scotchmer died on January 30, 2014, one week after her 64th birthday, following a brief bout with intestinal cancer.

Research