Photo: Joi Ito / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Hal Varian

ハル・ヴァリアン　/　はる・ゔぁりあん

American economist

March 18, 1947 (age 79)　・　Wooster, Ohio, United States

Ohio
economist
university teacher

My Take

Hal Varian is the rare academic who reshaped the actual economy, not just the syllabus. Generations of students learned microeconomics from his textbooks, which would be a legacy on its own, but in 2002 he became Google's chief economist and helped engineer the auction logic behind the search-advertising machine that funds much of the modern web. I find that leap from Berkeley's information economics to building real markets genuinely thrilling. The Guggenheim and von Neumann Award are nice, yet what impresses me most is intellect that ships: theory translated into systems that quietly move billions of dollars every day.

Overview

Hal Ronald Varian (born March 18, 1947, Wooster, Ohio) is an American economist and served as a chief economist at Google. He also holds the title of emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he was founding dean of the School of Information. Varian is an economist specializing in microeconomics and information economics. Varian joined Google in 2002 as its chief economist.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1. Profile

Name (English): Hal Varian
Name (Japanese): ハル・ヴァリアン
Reading: はる・ゔぁりあん
Born: March 18, 1947 (age 79)
Zodiac / Chinese zodiac: Pisces / Boar
Origin: Wooster, Ohio, United States
Blood type: Private
Height: Private
Agency: Private
Occupation: economist / university teacher

2. Background

Elementary school: Private
Junior high: Private
High school: Private
University: University of California, Berkeley

Awards & achievements

Guggenheim Fellowship
Humboldt Research Fellowship
1996 John von Neumann Award
2006 honorary doctorate of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Humboldt Prize
Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association
1983 Fellow of the Econometric Society
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

3. Relationships

Spouse: Private
Children: Private
Parents: Private
Siblings: Private

4. Personality

Motto

Private

6. Links

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