Dr. Michael Frakes

Biography

Michael D. Frakes is the Kenneth Pye Distinguished Professor at Duke University School of Law with a secondary faculty appointment in the Duke Economics Department and serves as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has extensive experience in empirical research, particularly in health law and torts, examining the legal, financial, and social factors that influence the decisions of physicians and healthcare providers. His work also addresses the implications of these factors on patient health, especially concerning racial disparities in health outcomes. In addition to his research in health law, Frakes focuses on innovation policy, specifically the determinants of behaviors and outcomes at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with a recent emphasis on the drug-patent landscape. His scholarship has been published in leading journals across economics, law, and medicine, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Frakes has received R01 awards from the NIH to study the effects of immunizing physicians against medical liability on the quality of medical care. He earned a B.S. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001, worked on his JD at Harvard Law School, and earned his PhD in Economics from MIT in 2009. Before joining Duke University in 2016, Frakes held significant academic and professional positions including a fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School and roles at Cornell Law School and Northwestern University School of Law.

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