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Lawrence H. Summers


Self Description

February 2006: "Lawrence H. Summers took office as 27th president of Harvard University on July 1, 2001.

His election by the President and Fellows of Harvard College with the counsel and consent of the Board of Overseers was announced on March 11, 2001, marking the culmination of an intensive and broad-ranging nine-month search for a successor to Neil L. Rudenstine. An eminent scholar and admired public servant, Mr. Summers is the former Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, and in the past decade served in a series of senior public policy positions, most recently as secretary of the treasury of the United States.

Having received a bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, Mr. Summers began his Harvard career as a doctoral student in economics. He served, among other roles, as a resident tutor in Lowell House and a teaching fellow for Ec 10, the popular undergraduate economics survey course. After completing his dissertation, "An Asset-Price Approach to Capital Income Taxation," he was awarded the PhD from Harvard in 1982. By that time, he had taught for three years as an economics faculty member at MIT, where he was named assistant professor in 1979 and associate professor in 1982. He then went to Washington as a domestic policy economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

In 1983, he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics, one of the youngest individuals in recent history to be named as a tenured member of the University's faculty. In 1987, he was named Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy. While on the faculty, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in macroeconomics and public finance and was an adviser to numerous graduate students who have themselves gone on to become leading economists. He also served as an editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Mr. Summers in 1987 became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), established by Congress to honor an exceptional young U.S. scientist or engineer whose work demonstrates originality, innovation, and a significant impact within one's field. In 1993, Mr. Summers was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.

Mr. Summers took leave from Harvard in 1991 to return to Washington, this time as vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank. In that position, he played a key role in designing strategies to assist developing countries, served on the bank's loan committee, and guided the bank's research, statistics, and external training programs. His research featured an influential report demonstrating the very high return on investing in educating girls in developing countries.

In 1993, Mr. Summers was named as the nation's undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs. He had broad responsibility for assisting then Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen in formulating and executing international economic policies. In 1995, then Secretary Robert E. Rubin AB '60 promoted Mr. Summers to the department's number-two post, deputy secretary of the treasury, in which he played a central role in a broad array of economic, financial, and tax matters, both international and domestic. During this time, he worked closely with Secretary Rubin and Alan Greenspan LLD '99 (hon.), chairman of the Federal Reserve System, in crafting government policy responses to financial crises in major developing countries.

On July 2, 1999, Mr. Summers was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of the treasury. In that capacity, he served as the principal economic adviser to the President and as the chief financial officer of the U.S. government, presiding over a federal department comprising some two dozen distinct bureaus and offices, with a civilian workforce of nearly 150,000 employees.

As secretary, he helped engineer a historic pay down of U.S. debt, worked successfully to extend the life of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and led the effort to enact the most sweeping financial deregulation in 60 years. Internationally, he worked to reform the international financial architecture and the International Monetary Fund, to secure debt relief for the world's poorest countries, and to combat international money laundering. At the end of his term as treasury secretary, Mr. Summers was awarded the Alexander Hamilton Medal, the treasury department's highest honor.

After leaving the treasury department in January, Mr. Summers served as the Arthur Okun Distinguished Fellow in Economics, Globalization, and Governance at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Mr. Summers's many publications include Understanding Unemployment (1990) and Reform in Eastern Europe (1991, coauthored with others), as well as more than 100 articles in professional economics journals. He also edited the series Tax Policy and the Economy. In 2000, Mr. Summers was invited to present the American Economic Association's prestigious Ely Lecture, in which he addressed "International Financial Crises: Causes, Preventions, and Cures."

In 2002, Mr. Summers was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare."

www.president.harvard.edu/biography/

Third-Party Descriptions

January 2013: "So what did bailout officials do? They put together a proposal full of even bigger deceptions to get it past Congress a second time. That process began almost exactly four years ago – on January 12th and 15th, 2009 – when Larry Summers, the senior economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, sent a pair of letters to Congress. The pudgy, stubby­fingered former World Bank economist, who had been forced out as Harvard president for suggesting that women lack a natural aptitude for math and science, begged legislators to reject Vitter's bill and leave TARP alone."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

May 2010: "Mr. Geithner was part of the meeting at the White House, along with Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/business/22regulate.html

March 2010: "Before he became Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers told me a story about helping his daughter study for her Advanced Placement exam in American history. While doing so, Mr. Summers realized that the federal government had not passed major social legislation in decades. There was the frenzy of the New Deal, followed by the G.I. Bill, the Interstate Highway System, civil rights and Medicare — and then nothing worth its own section in the history books."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24leonhardt.html

September 2006: The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be the result of “innate” intellectual deficiencies, particularly in mathematics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/18/science/19womencnd.html

February 2006: Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, announced yesterday that he will resign his post, bringing to close a stormy tenure in which the former Treasury secretary made impolitic remarks about women, alienated many black professors and repeatedly clashed with the faculty at America's most prominent university.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022101842.html

January 2005: When Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, suggested this month that one factor in women's lagging progress in science and mathematics might be innate differences between the sexes, he slapped a bit of brimstone into a debate that has simmered for decades. And though his comments elicited so many fierce reactions that he quickly apologized, many were left to wonder: Did he have a point?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/science/24women.htm

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Brookings Institution, The (Brookings Institute) Organization Feb 22, 2006
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Student/Trainee (past or present) Harvard University Organization
Student/Trainee (past or present) Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Organization
Member of (past or present) National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Organization Feb 22, 2006
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) National Economic Council (NEC) Organization May 22, 2010
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Treasury Department/Department of the Treasury Organization
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Organization Feb 22, 2006
Organization Executive (past or present) World Bank Group Organization
Subordinate of (past or present) Sen. Lloyd M. Bentsen Esq. Person Feb 22, 2006
Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Timothy F. Geithner Person Jun 20, 2009
Advised by (past or present) Gary G. Gensler MBA Person May 21, 2010
Subordinate of (past or present) Robert "Bob" E. Rubin Esq. Person Feb 22, 2006

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jan 04, 2013 Secret and Lies of the Bailout:The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come

QUOTE: Not only did [the 2009 banking system bailout--Ed.] prevent another Great Depression, we've been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right? Wrong. It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in – only temporarily, mind you – to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. The result is one of those deals where one wrong decision early on blossoms into a lush nightmare of unintended consequences.

 Rolling Stone
Jun 16, 2011 Who Is James Johnson?

QUOTE: Morgenson and Rosner write with barely suppressed rage, as if great crimes are being committed. But there are no crimes. This is how Washington works. Only two of the characters in this tale come off as egregiously immoral. Johnson made $100 million while supposedly helping the poor.

 New York Times
Mar 21, 2011 Gains, and Drawbacks, for Female Professors

QUOTE: Many female professors say that M.I.T.’s aggressive push to hire more women has created the sense that they are given an unfair advantage..." "To women in my generation, these residual issues can sound small because we see so much progress," said Nancy H. Hopkins, a molecular biologist who instigated the first report. “But they’re not small; they still create an unequal playing field for women — not just at universities, and certainly not just at M.I.T. And they’re harder to change because they are a reflection of where women stand in society."

 New York Times
May 21, 2010 Reconciliation for 2 Financial Overhaul Bills

QUOTE: In three areas, consumer protection, restricting banks from using their own money to make bets in the market, and dealing with failing institutions that threaten the financial system, administration officials suggested that they were inclined to favor provisions in the Senate version over those of the House bill...

 New York Times
Mar 23, 2010 In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality

QUOTE: [over the past three decades] government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor. Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction.

 New York Times
Jun 11, 2009 Bank Chief Tells of U.S. Pressure to Buy Merrill Lynch

QUOTE: ... Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America’s embattled chief executive, walked into yet another Congressional hearing room...lawmakers turned the spotlight on personalities who were not seated in the chamber: the federal officials who had pushed him to complete a troubled merger with Merrill Lynch late last year, despite knowing that huge losses riddled the once-mighty Wall Street firm.

 New York Times
Jun 01, 2007 Sense and Consensus

QUOTE: Consensus, then, is the guiding principal of Jeffersonian executive action. And so it is in universities. Consensus-seeking slows down decision-making sometimes disastrously, but most of the time benignly — making universities the most conservative of organizations, which rarely lose their pants in fly-by-night schemes. So, while advancement is slowed, risk is minimized.

 Inside Higher Ed
Sep 18, 2006 Institutions Hinder Female Academics, Panel Says

QUOTE: Women in science and engineering are hindered not by lack of ability but by bias and “outmoded institutional structures” in academia....report recommends that universities alter procedures for hiring and evaluation, change typical timetables for tenure and promotion, and provide more support for working parents.

 New York Times
Jul 13, 2006 Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist: Biologist Who Underwent Sex Change Describes Biases Against Women

QUOTE: After he underwent a sex change...another scientist...was heard to say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's"...many men are unconscious of the privileges that come with being male, which leaves them unable to countenance talk of glass ceilings and discrimination.

 Washington Post
Feb 22, 2006 Embattled Harvard President To Resign

QUOTE: Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, announced yesterday that he will resign his post, bringing to close a stormy tenure in which the former Treasury secretary made impolitic remarks about women, alienated many black professors and repeatedly clashed with the faculty...

 Washington Post
Mar 29, 2005 College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds

QUOTE: Even after factoring in levels of achievement, as measured by published work and organization memberships, "the most likely conclusion" is that "being conservative counts against you," he said.

 Washington Post
Jan 28, 2005 Don't Let Larry Summers Off the Hook Yet: Why the Harvard president's tactless social science was a bad idea.

QUOTE: ...when it comes to talking about innate biological differences between the genders, some tact and intellectual rigor is required—if only because of the long history of genetic explanations being used to justify discrimination. So how and what Summers said matters. So, too, does the position from which Summers is speaking.

 Slate
Jan 24, 2005 Gray Matter and Sexes: A Gray Area Scientifically

QUOTE: Has science found compelling evidence of inherent sex disparities in the relevant skills, or perhaps in the drive to succeed at all costs, that could help account for the persistent paucity of women in science generally, and at the upper tiers of the profession in particular?

 New York Times
Sep 27, 2002 Web Site Fuels Debate on Campus Anti-Semitism

QUOTE: ...the "Keep Us Informed" section, inviting the submission of "reports on Middle East-related scholarship, lectures, classes, demonstrations and other activities" --- in other words, they say, inviting students to turn in their professors.

 New York Times
Jan 17, 2002 A Negative Impression On Affirmative Action

QUOTE: ...we persist in seeing blacks as victims...the effort to rectify that discrimination not only uses its methods -- preferences based on race -- but certifies its reasoning: On account of race, this person cannot compete on his or her own.

 Washington Post
Jan 07, 2002 Black Scholar Chides Summers for 'Attack': Harvard Professor Airs Feelings on Talk Show

QUOTE: Cornel West, the professor at the center of a racially tinged dispute that threatens to break up Harvard University's Afro-American Studies Department, says that Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers "attacked and insulted" him and treated him with "disrespect."

 Washington Post