Richard C. Levin
Richard C. Levin, the Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics, was selected as the twenty-second president of Yale in 1993. Mr. Levin was born in San Francisco, California in 1947. He graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco, received his bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University in 1968, and studied politics and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a B. Litt. degree. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. from Yale and that same year he was named to the Yale Faculty.
A specialist in the economics of technological change, Mr. Levin has written extensively on such diverse subjects as the patent system, industrial research and development, and the effects of antitrust and public regulation on private industry. In the mid 1980's he directed a major effort to gather evidence on the incentives for 130 manufacturing industries' investments in research and development. Throughout the 70's and 80's, his series of papers on the Interstate Commerce Commission had significant influence on the course of railroad deregulation.
Before becoming president, Mr. Levin devoted himself for two decades to teaching, research, and administration. His teaching included courses on microeconomics, industrial organization, antitrust, the oil industry, the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing industries, and the history of economic thought. He served on dozens of major committees, supervised an unusually large number of doctoral dissertations, and rose in the administrative ranks to become, first, director of graduate studies in economics, next the chairman of the economics department, and finally the dean of the graduate school.
Mr. Levin is a longtime New Haven resident. He and his wife Jane and their four children have been active and involved in community life. Since becoming president of Yale, Mr. Levin has made an effort to use his knowledge and concern for the City to build bridges between Yale and New Haven. In partnership with the City he has supported new initiatives in the areas of economic development, education and human services, and neighborhood revitalization. Downtown renovation, the President's Public Service Fellowships, and the University's Homebuyer Program are examples of initiatives taken in the first few years of his presidency. He has also initiated a campus renovation program of unprecedented scale and scope, while working to retain the strength of Yale's exceptional undergraduate college and 11 distinguished graduate schools.
Mr. Levin currently serves as a director of the Hewlett Foundation, J-STOR, and the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy. He is chairman of the board of the University Alliance for Lifelong Learning, a joint venture of Yale, Oxford and Stanford Universities.