Carl Shapiro

Shapiro had the honor of serving as a Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during 2011-12. For the two years immediately prior to that, he was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics at the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice; he also held that position during 1995-96. From 1998 to 2008, Shapiro served as Director of the Institute of Business and Economic Research at UC Berkeley. He has been Editor and Co-Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, among other honors. Shapiro earned his PhD in Economics at M.I.T. in 1981, taught at Princeton University during the 1980s, and has been on the Berkeley faculty since 1990.

Shapiro has published extensively in the areas of industrial organization, competition policy, patents, the economics of innovation, and competitive strategy. His current research interests include competition policy, the economics of innovation, the design and use of patents, housing finance, and energy and environmental economics.

Shapiro is the co-author, with Hal R. Varian, of Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, published by the Harvard Business School Press. Information Rules has received critical acclaim for its application of economic principles to the Information Economy and has been widely read by managers and adopted for classroom use.