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Yale M. Braunstein (January 12, 1945 - July 25, 2012) was an American economist and academic. Braunstein was a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information and was a scholar of the economics of information and communications industries and systems, with a focus on telecommunications policy, broadband, and the economics of intellectual property policy. He was the author or co-author of over 50 articles in the fields of economics and information science and served as a consultant for several corporations and government agencies in the United States and internationally.

Background
Yale was born in Philadelphia to Oscar and Betty Braunstein on January 12, 1945. He received a B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. In 1968, while at Stanford, he was married to Elizabeth Braunstein, with whom he later had a son. His first faculty job was as Assistant Professor of Economics at the New York University, a position he held from 1974 to 1977. He then served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Brandeis University from 1977 to 1983. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley School of Information (then the School of Library and Information Studies) in 1983.

As an economist, Braunstein focused on competition in information products and services, in particular on how new generations of products and technologies alter the commercial landscape for incumbent players. His research areas included economies of scale and scope, pricing, market structure, and the economics of intellectual property rights. His work was published in the major scholarly journals in economics, information science, and legal policy.

Braunstein developed financial, forecasting, tariff, and valuation models in areas that include cellular, fixed, and international telecommunications; cable, satellite, and IP television; and broadband. This work has been used by applicants for licenses, regulators, and policy makers in the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Braunstein was a visiting scholar and guest lecturer in China and Germany and at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Working with faculty at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) in Munich, he co-developed and co-taught the course "Realizing Digital Convergence" which was simultaneously offered in Berkeley and Munich with lectures delivered live over the web in both directions.