Section is also cosponsor of the Zellner prize with Thomson Reuters

Varian

We are extremely pleased to announce that the Economic Outlook Luncheon speaker at this year’s JSM will be Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, on the topic “Predicting the Present with Google Trends.” Varian started at Google in 2002 as a consultant and has been involved in many aspects of the company, including auction design (all of Google’s ads are sold by auction), econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy, and public policy. He also holds academic appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, in three departments: business, economics, and information management.

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 that have been translated into 22 languages; he co-authored a best-selling book on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy; and he wrote a monthly column for the New York Times from 2000 to 2007.

This promises to be an exciting and engaging session. We urge you to include this session, which has a $40 fee, on your JSM registration. (If you have already registered, you can still add this to your registration.)

Thomson Reuters New Cosponsor of the Zellner Award

Thomson Reuters will be cosponsoring the 2010 and 2011 Zellner Thesis Award along with the Section of Business and Economic Statistics, in conjunction with the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics (JBES). This award is named for Arnold Zellner, past chair of the Business and Economic Statistics Section, past president of the ASA, and founding editor of JBES. This award is for the best PhD thesis addressing an applied problem in either business or economics statistics, and it is intended to recognize outstanding work completed by promising young researchers in the field. The winner of the award, which consists of a $1,500 cash prize, will be announced at the JSM in August, and a portion of the winning thesis is eligible for publication in JBES.