Hal Ronald Varian(born March 18, 1947, inWooster, Ohio) isChief EconomistatGoogleand holds the title of emeritus professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeleywhere he was founding dean of theSchool of Information.Varian is an economist specializing inmicroeconomicsandinformation economics.
Hal Varian | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Academic career | |
Field | Microeconomics,information technology |
Institution | University of California, Berkeley MIT |
School or tradition | Neoclassical economics |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley MIT |
Doctoral advisor | Daniel McFadden David Gale |
Doctoral students | Earl Grinols James Andreoni |
InformationatIDEAS / RePEc |
Varian joined Google in 2002 as its chief economist. He played a key role in the development of Google's advertising model and data analysis practices.[1]
Early life
editHal Varian was born on March 18, 1947, inWooster, Ohio.He received hisB.S.fromMITin economics in 1969 and both hisM.A.in mathematics andPh.D.in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973.
Career
editVarian taught atMIT,Stanford University,theUniversity of Oxford,theUniversity of Michigan,theUniversity of Sienaand other universities around the world. He has two honorary doctorates, from the University of Oulu,Finlandin 2002, and a Dr. h. c. from theKarlsruhe Institute of Technology(KIT), Germany, awarded in 2006. He is emeritus professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley,where he was founding dean of theSchool of Information.[2]
Varian joined Google in 2002 as chief economist, and has worked on the design of advertising auctions, econometrics, finance, corporate strategy, and public policy.
Varian is the author of two bestselling textbooks:Intermediate Microeconomics,[3]an undergraduate microeconomics text, andMicroeconomic Analysis,an advanced text aimed primarily at first-year graduate students in economics. Together withCarl Shapiro,he co-authoredInformation Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network EconomyandThe Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction.[4]According to theOpen Syllabus Project,Varian is the fourth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses.[5]
In September 2023, Varian was called to testify by the DOJ in the U.S. et al. v. Google lawsuit on a memo he wrote in 2003: "Thoughts on Google v Microsoft." with the subject "We should be careful about what we say in both public and private".[6][7]The DOJ also brought up memos where Varian instructed Google employees to avoid the use of language such as "market share," "scale," "network effects," "leverage," "lock up," "lock in," "bundle," and "tie.",[7]to avoid Google from being perceived as being a monopoly and to avoid scrutiny from antitrust watchdogs.[8]
Personal life
editVarian is married and has one child, Christopher Max Varian.[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Zuboff, Shoshana (2020).The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.PublicAffairs. p. 64.ISBN978-1-61039-570-0.
- ^"Hal R. Varian".U.C. Berkeley.Retrieved2010-10-22.
- ^Varian, Hal R (2014).Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach: Ninth International Student Edition.W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-0-393-92077-2.
- ^Hal R. Varian; Joseph Farrell; Carl Shapiro (23 December 2004).The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction.Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-60521-2.
- ^"Open Syllabus Project".Archived fromthe originalon 2022-09-21.Retrieved2020-01-24.
- ^Feiner, Lauren (2023-09-12)."Google engaged in a monopolistic feedback loop to maintain search dominance, DOJ alleges in first day of trial".CNBC.Retrieved2023-09-16.
- ^abRobertson, Adi (2023-09-15)."In the Google antitrust trial, defaults are everything and nobody likes Bing".The Verge.Retrieved2023-09-16.
- ^Belanger, Ashley (2023-09-14)."Google hid evidence by training workers to avoid words monopolists use, DOJ says".Ars Technica.Retrieved2023-09-16.
- ^Curriculum vitaeArchived2015-12-08 at theWayback Machine(PDF; 122 kB), onberkeley.edu.
External links
edit- Hal Varian's Website
- Position Auctions
- Roberts, Russ(July 28, 2008)."Varian on Technology".EconTalk.Library of Economics and Liberty.
- Hal Varianpublications indexed byGoogle Scholar
- "Hal Varian".JSTOR.
- AppearancesonC-SPAN