MIT Names Richard Schmalensee as New Dean of Sloan School of Management

Business Wire, Oct 27, 1998

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 1998--Professor Richard L. Schmalensee, a world-recognized industrial economist and expert witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial, has been dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Schmalensee, 54, served as deputy dean from 1996 to 1998 and has been interim dean at Sloan since Glen L. Urban completed his term in July.

"As a long-time MIT faculty member, Dick is a superb researcher and scholar who demonstrated his leadership talents as Sloan's Deputy Dean and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research," said Professor Robert A. Brown, Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Dick has been dedicated to enriching the intellectual connections within MIT while enhancing the quality of teaching, research and entrepreneurial innovation at Sloan."

MIT President Charles M. Vest said, "Dick Schmalensee is an outstanding leader and scholar with an international reputation in business, government and academia. He has served on President George Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is a respected and effective thinker on emissions trading and issues of global change, and is a highly sought expert in the economics of competition. He is well-suited to advance Sloan as a world-class business school educating leaders for the knowledge- and technology-driven global businesses and entrepreneurial enterprises of the future."

President George Bush said, "The Sloan School of Management has chosen well in selecting Dick Schmalensee as its new Dean. Dick was a valued member of my Council of Economic Advisers, and MIT is lucky to have him."

Schmalensee has also served on the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Economic Advisory Committee and chaired its Advisory Council on Clean Air Act Compliance Analysis. He now serves on the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics.

Schmalensee is the Gordon Y Billard Professor of Economics and Management at Sloan and Director of MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. Recognized as an authority on the economics of industrial markets and on regulatory and antitrust policy, Schmalensee is often sought by private industry for his counsel. He serves as a Microsoft economist and expert witness in the current antitrust case. He has consulted for numerous private firms and government agencies, including the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Kathleen B. Cooper, Chief Economist at Exxon Corporation, said, "Dick Schmalensee commands enormous respect in both policy and business communities for his penetrating analysis and wise counsel in addressing solutions. I am confident that he will lead the Sloan School with distinction."

"I am deeply honored to be chosen to lead the MIT Sloan School's management team at this time of significant change and growth," Schmalensee said. "This is a tremendous opportunity to build on the success that Glen Urban achieved as dean and to enhance and solidify Sloan's leadership role. As dean I want to concentrate on four goals: driving continuous improvement in our MBA program and in the provision of services to students; enhancing facilities and infrastructure; deepening connections within Sloan and within MIT; and improving linkages with the business community locally, nationally and globally."

Schmalensee's research centers on industrial economics and its application to managerial and public policy. He has written six books and published more than 100 articles in professional journals and books. He is co-editor of the Handbook of Industrial Organization, a standard reference work. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the International Academy of Management, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Before joining MIT in 1977, Schmalensee was an Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego, and a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Business School. He is the first undergraduate alumnus of MIT to assume the dean post.

Schmalensee grew up in Belleville, Illinois. He received his S.B. degree in economics, politics, and science from MIT in 1965 and a doctorate in economics from MIT in 1970. He lives in Chestnut Hill, MA with his wife, Diane, and their two sons.

The MIT Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the world's leading business schools - conducting cutting-edge research and providing management education to top students from more than 60 countries. The School is part of MIT's rich intellectual tradition of education and research.