Dennis Alden Yao (born August 29, 1953)[1] is an American academic who served as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 1991 to 1994.
After working in the private sector as a product planner for Ford Motor Company, Yao would receive his PhD in economics from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1985.
At Wharton, he developed and taught a class that focused on strategies for competition within an oligopolistic framework called “Competitive Strategy and Industrial Structure.”[9] While serving as an associate professor at the Wharton's department of public policy and management, Yao was chosen by President George H. W. Bush to replace Andrew Strenio on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
[10] Yao was the third career economist to serve on the FTC, an agency generally composed of attorneys, after James C. Miller III and George W.
[15] However, after serving three years of a seven-year term, Yao chose to resign from the FTC on September 1, 1994, in order to return to teaching at the University of Pennsylvania.