by Gretchen Kell
Carl Shapiro, a professor at the Haas School of Business, joined the U.S. Department of Justice Sept. 1.
Shapiro is deputy assistant attorney general for antitrust, providing economic analysis for the justice department's antitrust and regulatory affairs divisions. He replaced Richard Gilbert, a Berkeley economics professor who held the post until his return to campus this summer.
"The antitrust division will surely have its plate full, with merger activity and other investigations," said Shapiro, "particularly given the converging nature of the telecommunications, computer and entertainment industries."
Shapiro's appointment brings to nine the number of Berkeley economists to work for the Clinton Administration. They include Laura D'Andrea Tyson, assistant to the president for economic policy at the National Economic Council; Janet Yellen, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; and Michael Katz, chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission.
A professor of economic analysis and policy at the Haas School since 1990, Shapiro is Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy and specializes in business strategy, antitrust and regulation and applied microeconomics. He came to Berkeley from Princeton, where he was a professor of economics and public affairs for 10 years. He received his BA from MIT, his MA from Berkeley and his PhD in economics from MIT.
David Teece, director of the Institute for Management Innovation and Organization, said the sequential appointments of Gilbert and Shapiro "to this key post reflects the leadership of Berkeley's business and economics faculty in developing new ways of thinking about competition policy and antitrust enforcement."
"They both have the capacity to join innovative academic research and practical public policy advice," he said. "Over the last five years, they and their colleagues have made major intellectual contributions to antitrust thinking, and this is now having a significant effect on policy both in the U.S. and abroad."
In addition to Shapiro, Gilbert, Tyson, Yellen and Katz, Berkeley Professor David Levine and Jay Stowsky, a research associate at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, were senior economists on the President's Council of Economic Advisers; Professor Brad De Long was deputy assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Treasury Department; and Professor William Dickens was a staff member on the Council of Economic Advisers.
Levine and De Long have returned to Berkeley. Gilbert is on leave through fall term. Stowsky is now director of research policy and development for UC, and Dickens is at the Brookings Institution.