Productivity and Profitability of Information Technology

Productivity growth is critical for the health of the U.S. economy. Profitability is critical for the health of the private sector. This talk describes the relationship between these two concepts and summarizes the results of a survey, the Net Impact Study, that examined the ways in which the Internet has impacted both productivity and profitability.

Presenter(s)

Hal R. Varian is the Dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a Professor in the Haas School of Business, a Professor in the Department of Economics, and holds the Class of 1944 Professorship.

He received his S.B. degree from MIT in 1969 and his MA (mathematics) and Ph.D. (economics) from UC Berkeley in 1973. Professor Varian is fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served as Co-Editor of the American Economic Review and is on the editorial boards of several journals.

Professor 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 11 languages. He is the co-author of a bestselling book on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy and cwrites a monthly column for the The New York Times.