Nadav Halevi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1928. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s studies in economics at the University of Cincinnati in 1951. He immigrated to Israel in 1953 and pursued his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University, earning his doctorate in 1956. Halevi served as a senior researcher at the Falk Research Center for Economic Research in Israel from 1953 to 1957 and joined the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University in 1960. Halevi served as Director of the Falk Institute for Economic Research in Israel from 1975 to 1979 and as Head of the Department from 1981 to 1982. Together with Ruth Klinov, he was awarded the Peretz Naftali Prize in Economic and Social Sciences in 1970 for their book The Economic Development of Israel.

His primary research areas were: empirical aspects of international trade with an emphasis on Israel; macroeconomic issues in the Mandatory Jewish economy and in Israel; the history of Bank Leumi; economic planning and policy in Israel.
 

Nadav Halevi passed away in Jerusalem in 2022.