David Teece

Teece grew up in Blenheim and Nelson, New Zealand and attended Waimea College before enrolling in 1967 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, where he earned a bachelor's degree and a Master of Commerce.

He moved to the United States to attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received a Ph.D. in economics, specializing in industrial economics, international trade, and technological innovation. Two members of the economics faculty had a particular influence on his research that he later acknowledged in articles he wrote in tribute to each of them: Edwin Mansfield, a pioneer in the study of industrial R&D and the economics of technological change; and Oliver Williamson, Nobel Laureate and creator of Transaction Cost Economics.

Teece taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1975 until 1982, when he was hired by the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, where he is a chaired professor. He has published more than 200 academic articles and more than a dozen books. He co-founded and serves on the editorial board of three academic journals, Industrial & Corporate Change (Oxford University Press), Russian Management Journal, and the Journal of Dynamic Competition. He is also the executive director of Berkeley Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization.

After the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Teece offered a substantial donation to the city for earthquake recovery. The money was used by his former university to install the classics and music school in the Old Chemistry building at the Christchurch Arts Centre. In 2017, 40 years after its move from the Christchurch Central City to the Ilam campus, the University of Canterbury returned to its original home, and opened The Teece Museum of Classical Antiques in May 2017. The Townsend Teece restored telescope has been restored for placement in the university's observatory in Christchurch.

Teece resides in Florida.

Teece has not publicly stated his political views, though he chaired Californians for a Balanced Budget and Better Economy, a PAC that supported Tom Campbell's 2012 run for U.S. Senate.

His largest political donation was $500,000 to Californians for a Balanced Budget and Better Economy. In recent election cycles he has donated to several Republican senators' campaigns, including Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Tom Cotton, Lisa Murkowski, and Dan Sullivan.