Hal R. Varian

Hal R. Varian is a prolific economic and academic writer who is best known for coining the term “information economics”. He is a Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics, and Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley and an honorary professor of economics at the University of Oxford. Varian is also the author or co-author of several textbooks, and his writing has been featured in academic journals, popular magazines, and books. He has also consulted for numerous companies, including Google and Microsoft.

Born in 1944 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Varian studied economics and mathematics at the University of Michigan. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in 1967, he embarked on his graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he gained his Master's degree in 1969 and was awarded his PhD in 1972. His doctoral research focused on linear programming, which draws heavily on mathematical equations to optimize economic systems.

Varian returned to the University of Michigan, where he taught microeconomics, labor economics, and econometrics. In 1977, he was hired by Berkeley and took on the roles of Professor of Business Administration and Economics and Research Director at the Institute of Business and Economic Research. It is here that he earned his lasting fame as an economic theorist and author.

During his time at Berkeley, Varian wrote and co-wrote several textbooks, including Microeconomic Theory (1984), Microeconomic Analysis (1992), and Intermediate Microeconomics (2009). His economics textbooks remain popular among many university students and are considered to be some of the most influential economics texts published since the 1950s. Furthermore, Varian’s concepts of information economics—which were first developed in his 1988 Ph.D. thesis—have become central to our understanding of the economics of information.

In addition to teaching and writing, Varian has served as a consultant for numerous organizations. He has provided advice to the World Bank, the European Union, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the United States Patent Office. He has also consulted for numerous private companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!. In 2009, at the behest of Google, Varian wrote “The Economics of Technology”, which sought to explain the behavior of businesses in the new online economy.

Varian has continued to write and publish mathematics and economics texts in recent years and remains a respected figure in economic theory. He has been given many awards, including the Kenneth J. Arrow Prize in Economics (1999), the Association for Computing Machinery Allen Newell Award (2000), and the John von Neumann Award (2004). In 2013, Varian was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2017, he was awarded the American Economic Association Prize for the Advancement of Economic Theory.

Hal R. Varian remains an influential voice in economics and technology and is regularly cited by academics and business leaders alike. With his 50-year career in academia and industry, Varian is one of the most recognized and respected figures in economics. His work in information economics and his many textbooks remains a cornerstone of economics curriculums. To this day, his work remains influential and has paved the way for further exploration in the field of information economics.