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Carl Shapiro Biography

Carl Shapiro

Carl Shapiro is the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He also is Director of the Institute of Business and Economic Research, and Professor of Economics in the Economics Department, at UC Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at M.I.T. in 1981, taught at Princeton University during the 1980s, and has been at Berkeley since 1990. He has been Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, among other honors.

Professor Shapiro has published extensively in the areas of industrial organization, competition policy, the economics of innovation, and competitive strategy. His current research interests include antitrust economics, intellectual property and licensing, product standards and compatibility, and the economics of networks and interconnection. Professor Shapiro served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during 1995-1996. He founded the Tilden Group, and is now a Senior Consultant with Charles River Associates, an economic consulting company. He has consulted extensively for a wide range of private clients as well as for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

Professor 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.

Updated January 4, 2024