Michael E. Levine

Michael E. Levine (died February 3, 2017) was a "Distinguished Research Scholar" at the New York University School of Law.

He made substantial contributions to the world of air transportation and its regulation as a senior airline executive, an academic and a government official.

A student of Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase at the University of Chicago and of Robert H. Bork, Ward S. Bowman and Friedrich Kessler at Yale, Levine established an innovative program in law and social sciences at Caltech and U.S.C., while holding professorships at both institutions.

Levine and this article were among the important sources relied on by then-professor Stephen Breyer when organizing the 1975 hearings on airline deregulation for Senator Ted Kennedy.

In 1978 and 1979, he served as General Director, International and Domestic Aviation, (the senior staff position at the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board) and devised many of the mechanisms and practices used to deregulate the industry.

[6] Levine was named among the ten most influential pioneers in the history of commercial aviation by Airfinance Journal, received the Transportation Research Foundation’s Distinguished Transportation Researcher award for lifetime achievement, and was the recipient of the CAB’s Distinguished Service Award.

He recruited Levine, a regularly appointed holder of a professorial chair who was already a member of the SOM faculty, as dean.