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Student Spotlight: Eric Hallstein
Student Spotlight Directory
ERG PhD candidate, Eric Hallstein.
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"Information and Consumer Behavior"
Eric Hallstein is a Ph.D. candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. Eric’s research explores how information-based forms of regulation such as eco-labeling affect the environmental, social and health impacts of production. His primary field is micro-economics, within which he has focused on empirical industrial organization, consumer behavior and applied econometrics.
Through their choices of products, consumers have the potential to reduce the environmental, social and health impacts of production, the impacts of which can be hard to regulate through traditional mechanisms due to the increasingly global scope and complexity of many supply chains. By buying products that have lower impacts, consumers can provide an incentive for firms to produce more of the “right” kinds of products. Eric’s research addresses such issues as how to target types of information and delivery channels to particular consumer groups, how to optimally bundle information to fit users’ decision routines, the pros and cons of third-party systems of information provision (versus national standards), and what some of the challenges and opportunities are for the next generation of web-based information-sharing tools.
Eric is examining these issues through his research on two information-based initiatives. The first of these initiatives, named FishWise, is an eco-label placed on seafood at the point of sale (www.sustainablefishery.org). In collaboration with several colleagues in UC-Berkeley’s Consumer Information Lab, Eric is conducting complementary research on a prototype of an on-line and mobile phone based platform that currently allows users to search for environmental information on over 40,000 products (http://nature.berkeley.edu/infolab/home).
Example of FishWise label on seafood at participating retailer.
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Eric feels that ERG has been an ideal academic environment from which to pursue the sort of multi-faceted research agenda required by his work. The emphasis placed by many “ERGies” on applied work has helped him maintain a focus on translating academic research into real-world solutions. Moreover, ERG offered early opportunities to teach and do research that helped him to refine the focus of his doctoral thesis.
Eric holds a MS from the Energy and Resources Group, a MEE from Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and an AB from Harvard University. Between completing his masters’ degrees and returning to graduate school, Eric Hallstein was a consultant in the San Francisco office of The Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, where he assisted clients on strategy and technology issues in e-commerce, high tech, transportation and energy. Eric has lived and worked in both Japan and Central America. He has also worked on wildlife and habitat conservation projects in Madagascar, Paraguay and Costa Rica with the Zoological Society of San Diego.
Eric is thankful for the mentorship he has received from a terrific dissertation committee: Dara O’Rourke (ESPM), Sofia Villas-Boas (ARE) and Priya Raghubir (Haas). His research has benefited greatly from conversations and collaborations with many other colleagues and faculty at ERG and the Consumer Information Lab. Financial support for his graduate work has come from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Consumer Information Lab, and the Energy and Resources Group.
3/08
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