Harvey Joshua Levin (July 1, 1924 – April 30, 1992) was an American economist. He was university research professor in the Department of Economics at Hofstra University (1989–92), Augustus B. Weller Professor of Economics at Hofstra (1964–89), and founder and director of its Public Policy Workshop (1975–92). He had previously served as professor at Columbia University. He was also a senior research associate at the Center for Policy Research.Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin
Levin is generally considered the first economist to propose the auctioning of broadcast frequencies as a means of allocating the airwaves as a natural resource. His work anticipated the evolution of television, satellites, cellular telephones, electronic remote boxes and wireless internet, and their demands on increasingly congested airwaves.Resources, "RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002
He consulted for the President's Office of Telecommunications Management, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the FCC's Public Advisory Committee on the World Administrative Radio Conferences (WARC88), the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the General Accounting Office, the Committee for Economic Development, the Department of Justice/Antitrust Division, and the Federal Trade Commission/Bureau of Economics.Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin
Early life
Growing up in an uneducated family of Jewish-Russian descent, Levin was accepted by Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1940 at the age of sixteen, after skipping two grades at Newton High School in Queens, New York. However, his family found it unaffordable and considered him too young for such a large institution. He partially worked his way through high school and college as a jazz pianist/arranger and later attended Harvard Law School as a Carnegie Fellow in Law and Economics.Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin
Originally planning to pursue English literature, he became fluent in seven other languages, including Japanese, by his college years.Hofstra University Archives, Guide to the Harvey J. Levin (1924–1992) Papers, 1947–1992 (bulk dates, 1954–1992), 13 c.f., Michael J. Robinson, Processing Archivist, June 1994 While an undergraduate student, he served as a commentator and disc jockey for the radio station of Hamilton College.Hamilton College Class of 1944 40th Reunion Yearbook, June 1–3, 1984
In World War II, he served as a Research Analyst and Foreign Language Officer in the Office of Strategic Services (later reorganized as the Central Intelligence Agency) in Washington, D.C. and Japan, drawing largely on his Japanese language skills.Hofstra University Archives, Guide to the Harvey J. Levin (1924–1992) Papers, 1947–1992 (bulk dates, 1954–1992), 13 c.f., Michael J. Robinson, Processing Archivist, June 1994
Career
For forty years spanning five decades, Levin researched, published, and proposed innovative economic and regulatory solutions that anticipated — and later addressed — the problems of competing rights and access to the airwaves, or electromagnetic spectrum, and its overuse and congestion. According to his colleagues, he was several decades ahead of his time in addressing the economic ramifications of the radio spectrum, long before others were concerned with the airwaves as a resource.Resources, "RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002
Focusing on its political ramifications, Levin's work is also considered by many economists to be the first to illustrate the economic necessity and benefits of equitable, global allocation of the airwaves as a limited resource, and diversification of its ownership.Resources, "RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002 He continued to penetrate the frontiers of communications economics even after it evolved into a highly pertinent fieldNational Research Council/National Academy of Sciences conference, June 15, 1987 (audio recording)Levin, Harvey J., Harvesting the Invisible Resource – Global Spectrum Management for Balanced Information Flows , 1991 — an evolution due, in large part, to his own contributions.CITI 1993–1994 Annual Report, "Affiliated Research Fellows: In Memory of Harvey Levin," Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, Columbia University School of BusinessHofstra University News Bureau, "Papers of Communications Economics Pioneer on Exhibit", August 1994 His colleagues in the field even complained that they were unable to complete the writing of a book he had started at the time of his death because his work was "too advanced" and far-reaching.Levin, Harvey J., Harvesting the Invisible Resource – Global Spectrum Management for Balanced Information Flows , 1991
Although he was a stickler for scientific evidence and economic viability, he also viewed economics as an art, and saw it as a vehicle for facilitating social progress. Among his proposals was a pricing mechanism that, in effect, ensured that latecomer users and emerging, underdeveloped countries would not be deprived of their use of the airwaves by the world powers or monopolies controlling the market.National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences conference, June 15, 1987 (audio recording)Levin, Harvey J., Harvesting the Invisible Resource – Global Spectrum Management for Balanced Information Flows , 1991 One of his last projects involved getting countries with satellites in orbit above less-industrialized nations to pay a kind of rent.Hofstra University News Bureau, "Personal Papers of Telecommunications Pioneer Donated to Hofstra University," January 27, 1994Newsday, "Harvey Joshua Levin, Professor at Hofstra", Estelle Lander, May 4, 1992
In pioneering the economics of the airwaves and space satellites by proposing market-based approaches to utilizing the spectrum, Levin was often met with skepticism and dismissal by government and industry officials — even, initially, disbelief that the airwaves were a resource at all. It prompted his creation of the phrase "The Invisible Resource", also the name of his 1971 book, which revolutionized the field.Resources,"RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002
Legacy Three years after his death, in 1995, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began implementing Levin's long controversial proposals by licensing and auctioning off portions of the radio spectrum, or broadcast frequencies, culminating in the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996.Resources, "RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002 In 1997, partially inspired by Levin's research, the U.S. Congress recommended a voucher program for allocating the use of outer space for transportation and satellites, in its appropriations bill for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).Resources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issue
His field of work continues to be developed by such colleagues as Molly Macauley,Resources for the Future: Space Policy Eli Noam and Thomas Hazlett.Financial Times, New Technology Policy Forum
His legacy lives on in his numerous publications,Levin, Harvey J., Papers and Publications, 1950–1991 in U.S. communications policy,Resources, "RFF Redux: Revisiting The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum", Fall 1996 issueResources, "Reflections", Molly K. Macauley, Summer 2002 issueNational Journal, "Ideas Change the World – And One Think Tank Quietly Did," Jonathan Rauch, October 5, 2002Resources for the Future 50th Anniversary Symposium, October 15, 2002 in his collections of personal papers at Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI),CITI 1993–1994 Annual Report, "Affiliated Research Fellows: In Memory of Harvey Levin," Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, Columbia University School of Business Hofstra University ArchivesHofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin Long Island Library Resources Council, "Hofstra University Archives Awarded Documentary Heritage Program Grant," February 3, 1994Folio, "The Harvey J. Levin Papers," Michael J. Robinson, Processing Archivist, Hofstra University Axxinn Library, July 1994 issue and Research Libraries Information Network,Hofstra University News Bureau, "Personal Papers of Telecommunications Pioneer Donated to Hofstra University," January 27, 1994Hofstra University News Bureau, "Papers of Communications Economics Pioneer on Exhibit", August 1994 and in the work of scholars and think tank groups like CITI and Resources for the Future.Resources for the Future: Space Policy
Sponsorship
On September 23, 1964, Hofstra University's board of trustees awarded the newly created Augustus B. Weller Chair in Economics (Long Island's first fully endowed professorial chair) to Harvey J. Levin, then chairman of the university's Economics Department, who held it for the next twenty-five years.Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin The chair supported Levin's research that served as the basis for numerous articles and presentations, as well as his books The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum (1971)Levin, Harvey J., The Invisible Resource – Use and Regulation of the Radio Spectrum, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971 and Fact and Fancy in Television Regulation – An Economic Study of Policy Alternatives (1980),Levin, Harvey J., Fact and Fancy in Television Regulation – An Economic Study of Policy Alternatives, Russell Sage Foundation and Basic Books, Inc., 1980 and initial groundwork for the follow-up book Harvesting the Invisible Resource – Global Spectrum Management for Balanced Information Flows (originally scheduled for publication in 1994.)Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin
Along with the Augustus B. Weller Chair in Economics at Hofstra University (1964–89), Levin's research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (1984–88, 1970–78), the Russell Sage Foundation (1978–79), and Resources for the Future (1980–82, 1964–69).Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin
He was a visiting fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, 1982–83, and a visiting scholar, Stanford University (Department of Economics/National Bureau of Economic Research, Hoover Institute, Center for Educational Research at Stanford), Summers 1982–91.Hofstra University Archives Faculty Collection: Harvey J. Levin