Hal Ronald Varian (born March 18, 1947 in
Wooster, Ohio
Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at t ...
) is Chief Economist at
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
and holds the title of emeritus professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
where he was founding dean of the
School of Information. Varian is an economist specializing in
microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
and
information economics
Information economics or the economics of information is the branch of microeconomics that studies how information and information systems affect an economy and economic decisions.
One application considers information embodied in certain types ...
.
Early life
Hal Varian was born on March 18, 1947 in
Wooster, Ohio
Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at t ...
. He received his
B.S.
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
from
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
in economics in 1969 and both his
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in mathematics and
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973.
Career
Varian taught at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
,
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, the
University of Siena
The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...
and other universities around the world. He has two honorary doctorates, from the University of Oulu,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
in 2002, and a Dr. h. c. from the
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association.
KIT was created in 2009 w ...
(KIT), Germany, awarded in 2006. He is emeritus professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where he was founding dean of the
School of Information.
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'', an undergraduate microeconomics text, and ''Microeconomic Analysis'', an advanced text aimed primarily at first-year graduate students in economics. Together with
Carl Shapiro
Carl Shapiro (born 20 March 1955) is an American economist and academic who serves as the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He is the co-author, along with Hal Varian ...
, he co-authored
''Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy'' and ''The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction''. According to the
Open Syllabus Project
The Open Syllabus Project (OSP) is an online open-source platform that catalogs and analyzes millions of college syllabi. Founded by researchers from the American Assembly at Columbia University, the OSP has amassed the most extensive collecti ...
, Varian is the fourth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses.
Personal life
Varian is married and has one child, Christopher Max Varian.
[Curriculum vitae](_blank)
(PDF; 122 kB), o
berkeley.edu
See also
*
Varian Rule The Varian Rule holds that "A simple way to forecast the future is to look at what rich people have today; middle-income people will have something equivalent in 10 years, and poor people will have it in an additional decade." It is attributed to Go ...
*
Varian's theorems Efficiency and fairness are two major goals of welfare economics. Given a set of resources and a set of agents, the goal is to divide the resources among the agents in a way that is both Pareto efficient (PE) and envy-free (EF). The goal was first ...
References
External links
Hal Varian's WebsitePosition Auctions*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Varian, Hal
1947 births
Living people
People from Wooster, Ohio
Haas School of Business faculty
Google employees
Microeconomists
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty
University of Michigan faculty
Stanford University faculty
Fellows of the Econometric Society
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association
Economists from Ohio
University of California, Berkeley School of Information faculty
Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture speakers
Fair division researchers