Professor Stern was raised in Hauppauge, NY, and graduated with a BA degree in Economics from New York University. After working for a consulting company in New York, Stern attended Stanford University and received his PhD in Economics in 1996. From 1995-2001, Stern was Assistant Professor of Management at the Sloan School at MIT, and, from 2001-2003, Stern was a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution. Stern is an Associate Professor in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a co-organizer of the Innovation Policy and the Economy Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Academic Director of the Kellogg Biotechnology Program. He is also an Associate Editor of Management Science, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, and the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, a Contributing Editor to the Antitrust Law Journal, and serves on the Board of Management of the International Schumpeter Society. In 2005, Stern was awarded the first Ewing Marion Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship.

Stern explores how innovation - the production and distribution of "ideas" - differs from more traditional economic goods, and the implications of these differences for business and public policy. Often focusing on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, this research is at the intersection between industrial organization and the economics of technical change. Recent studies examine the determinants of R&D productivity, the role of incentives and organizational design on the process of innovation, and the drivers of commercialization strategy for technology entrepreneurs. A key conclusion from this research is that, particularly for start-up innovators, the ability to translate "ideas" into competitive advantage depends on subtle elements of the firm's microeconomic and competitive environment. Effective management of innovation depends on the integration between the firm's commercialization strategy, research organization, and technology development choices.