Home > Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist, politician, and academic. He is the current and 27th President of Harvard University.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Summers is the son of two economists, as well as the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics: Paul Samuelson (sibling of father Robert Summers , who changed the family name from Samuelson to Summers to avoid anti-Semitic prejudice) and Kenneth Arrow (his mother's sibling). He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he originally intended to study physics but soon switched to economics (BS, 1975), and then Harvard University as a graduate student ( PhD, 1982), where he studied under economist Martin Feldstein. He has had stints teaching at both MIT and Harvard. He became the youngest tenured professor in Harvard's history in 1983.
As a researcher, Summers has made important intellectual contributions in many areas of economics, primarily public finance, labor economics, financial economics, and macroeconomics. To a lesser extent, Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography, economic historyEconomic history is the application of economic theories to historical study. Cliometrics is the use of econometric techniques to study economic history. See also Price revolution Economic history of Canada Economic history of Japan Economic history of th, and development economicsDevelopment economics is a branch of macroeconomics that deals with the facts of long term economic growth, using mathematical methods from dynamical systems like differential equations and inter-temporal optimization. Development economics also includes. His work generally places emphasis in the analysis of empirical economic data in order to answer well-defined questions (for example: Does saving respond to after-tax interest rates? Are the returns from stocks and stock portfolios predictable?, Are most of those who receive unemployment benefits only transitorily unemployed?, etc.) For his work he received the John Bates Clark MedalThe John Bates Clark Medal is awarded biannually by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge". Named after the American N in 1993 from the American Economic Association (an honor economists often consider as prestigious as the Nobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes (pronounced no-BELL or no-bell are awarded annually to people who have done outstanding research, invented groundbreaking techniques or equipment, or made outstanding contributions to society. It is generally regarded as the supreme comme). In 1987 he was the first social scientist to win the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation (NSF is an independent United States government agency responsible for supporting basic science research. It operates mainly through the establishment of research grants, particularly to universities or through individual g.
Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as Chief Economist for the World BankThe International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages BIRD), better known as the World Bank is an international organization created to fight poverty by means of financing states. Its operation is maintained through payment (1991-1993) and later in various posts in the United States Department of the TreasuryThe United States Department of the Treasury is a Cabinet department, a treasury, of the United States government established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage the revenue of the United States government. Overview It is administered by the United St under the ClintonWilliam Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) is a U. politician who served two terms as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A moderate Democrat who was elected Governor of Arkansas five times, Cli administration. From 1999 to 2001 he served as Secretary of the Treasury, a position in which he succeeded his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 2001, he left the Treasury and returned to Harvard as its President.
In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo which has become known as the infamous Summers memo. This memo included a satirical argument that "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that". This argument, which he has since downplayed, was excerpted and popularized on the Internet and made him known in the anti-globalization movement as a symbol of "the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in" (in the words of then Brazilian Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenberger).
Summers is a steadfast defender of free trade and globalization, and his positions on a number of politically-charged subjects tend to lie to the right of the average members of American academia. This, together with his candid demeanour and his call for stressing the hard sciences in the undergraduate core curriculum, have made him somewhat controversial as President of Harvard, particularly among his left-wing colleagues in the humanities and social sciences. Early in his tenure, a spat with celebrity African-American Studies professor Cornel West over academic standards in research and grade inflation in undergraduate courses received much publicity. West resigned from Harvard shortly afterwards and moved to Princeton University. In 2002 Summers drew attention by claiming that the Noam Chomsky-led campaign to have universities divest from companies with Israeli holdings is "anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intention".
