Biographical note

Hal R. Varian is the Chief Economist at Google. He started in May 2002 as a consultant and has been involved in many aspects of the company, including auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy, and public policy. Varian is also an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley in three departments: business, economics, and information management. Varian received his BS degree from MIT in 1969 and his MA in mathematics and PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 1973. He has also taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan, and other universities around the world. He 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 to 1990 and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Varian 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.