2010 UC San Diego Economics Roundtable Lecture Series

The UC San Diego Economics Roundtable is organized by the UC San Diego Department of Economics in coordination with UC San Diego Extended Studies and Public Programs. The purpose of the Roundtable is to provide top business professionals and community leaders in the San Diego region with the opportunity to share the views and opinions of renowned experts in the fields of economics, finance, business and public policy. Members of the Roundtable will share insights with their counterparts in the business community and with members of the UC San Diego faculty.

Registration

$150 for the full series (25% discount)
Hal Varian lecture: $50
Elisse Walter lecture: $50
Takeo Hoshi lecture: $50
Fall Event (speaker to be announced): $50

Click to register online.

Schedule of Events

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Hal Varian
Chief Economist at Google

Thursday, February 18, 2010
7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. (Continental Breakfast)
UC San Diego Faculty Club

"Predicting the Present With Google Trends"

 

 

Hal Varian is the Chief Economist at Google. He started in May 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 UC Berkeley in three departments: business, economics, and information management.

Dr. Varian has published numerous papers in economic theory, industrial organization, public finance, econometrics, and information economics. He is the author of two major economics textbooks which have been translated into 22 languages and is co-author of one of the bestselling books on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy and The Economy of Information Technology: An Introduction.

Hal has said "If you torture the data long enough it will confess to anything." But," he also adds "I am not sure we want to waterboard our data, but at least we do want to understand it."

Professor Varian received his M.A. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and has honorary doctorates from the University of Oulu, Finland, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. Varian regularly publishes articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

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Elisse Walter
SEC Commissioner

Friday, April 23, 2010
7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. (Continental Breakfast)
UC San Diego Faculty Club

"Plans and Prospects for Financial Reform"

 

 

Elisse Walter was appointed by President George W. Bush to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on July 9th, 2008. She is one of the five Commissioners with the SEC. A former Senior Executive Vice President for Regulatory Policy and Programs at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the nation's regulator of securities firms, Walter spent much of her career at the SEC and financial industry regulating entities.

Harvey Goldschmidt, a former SEC Commissioner said of her SEC appointment, "she brought a new breadth, high intelligence and integrity that everyone admired...at just the right moment." And SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro on Walter, "she has a phenomenal ability to cut through lots of information, lots of complexity, understand the situation, and then be creative in coming up with a good way forward."

Commissioner Walter graduated from Yale University with a B.A., cum laude, in mathematics and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School. She is a member of the Academy of Woman Achievers of the YWCA of New York City, and has received the Presidential Rank Award, the SEC Chairman's Award for Excellence, and the SEC's Distinguished Service Award.

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Takeo Hoshi
Acting Dean, Professor, Pacific Economic Cooperation,
Chair in International Economic Relations,
UC San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies

Thursday, July 20, 2010
7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. (Continental Breakfast)
UC San Diego Faculty Club

"Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis"

 

Professor Hoshi is the Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at IR/PS, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research. His major research area is the financial aspect of the Japanese economy, especially corporate finance and governance.

Hoshi is the inaugural recipient of the Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize, given to three leading Japanese economists who work on policy issues. He is also the recipient of the JEA-Nakahara Prize, which is awarded by the Japanese Economic Association to a Japanese economist with international recognition under the age of 45.

He is co-author of Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future, which received the Nikkei Award for best economic book. Other publications include Crisis and Change in the Japanese Financial System, Economics of the Living Dead, and Solutions to Japan's Banking Problems: What Might Work and What Definitely Will Fail.

He has been editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Japanese and International Economies since 1999.

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Acknowledgements

The Department of Economics gratefully acknowledges the 2009 UC San Diego Economics Roundtable Steering Committee for their support:

Jeffrey Elman, Dean of Social Sciences UC San Diego	Alan. N. Nevin, Director of Economic Research MarketPointe Realty Advisors
Rick F. Hall, President and CEO La Jolla Bank	Don Billings, Principal Promontory Financial Group
Bill Nelson, Board of Directors Regents Bank	Nils Clark, Assistant Vice President Wells Fargo Investments
Donald Smythe, Professor of Law California Western School of Law	Jeffrey Lewin, Partner Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel
James Hamilton, Professor of Economics UC San Diego	Mary Walshok, Dean & Assoc. Vice Chancellor UC San Diego Extended Studies and Public Programs

The UCSD Economics Roundtable thanks Corporate Sponsor Wells Fargo and Table Underwriters La Jolla Bank, MarketPointe Realty Advisors, UC San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, The San Diego Daily Transcript, Sullivan Hill Lewin Rez & Engel, Regents Bank, Reis Investment Management, California Western School of Law, and UCSD-TV for their generous support of this series.