Hal Varian

Hal R. Varian is the chief economist at Google. Since 2002 he has been involved in many aspects of the company, including auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy and public policy.

Hal also holds academic appointments at the University of California, Berkeley in three departments: business, economics, and information management.

Hal is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was co-editor of the American Economic Review from 1987-1990 and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

He has published numerous papers in economic theory, industrial organization, financial economics, econometrics and information economics. He is the author of two major economics textbooks which have been translated into 22 languages. He is the co-author of a bestselling book on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy and wrote a monthly column for the New York Times from 2000 to 2007.

He received his S.B. degree from MIT and his M.A, in mathematics and Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley. Hal has also taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and other universities around the world.