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Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
who served as the 71st
United States secretary of the treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as
president of Harvard University The president of Harvard University is the chief administrator of Harvard University and the '' ex officio'' president of the Harvard Corporation. Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to the pr ...
from 2001 to 2006,"Historical Facts"
Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017
where he is the Charles W. Eliot university professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at
Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, publi ...
. On September 20, 2022 he asked a question on Twitter: “There is some social phenomenon which I suspect explains non work, non marriage, deaths of despair, general alienation and, I suspect, the rise of reactionary populism. It should be a major task of social science to understand it.�
This question demonstrates the large gap in his knowledge about the Karl Marx theory of alienation, which Summers, as an economist should be aware of
Summers, Lawrence H. and John A. Haigh [https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/about/from-the-directors "From the Directors,"">Harvard Directory,'' retrieved March 31, 2017
Summers, Lawrence H. and John A. Haig

''About'' section, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017
Born in New Haven, Connecticut">"From the Directors,"
''About'' section, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017
Born in New Haven, Connecticut
, Summers became a professor of economics at Harvard University in 1983. He left Harvard in 1991, working as the Chief Economist of the World Bank from 1991 to 1993."Former Chief Economists"
, Data & Research office, The World Bank, retrieved March 31, 2017
"Lawrence H. Summers"
''World Bank Live,'' The World Bank, retrieved March 31, 2017
"Lawrence H. Summers,"
Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017
In 1993, Summers was appointed Under Secretary for International Affairs of the
United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...
under President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
's administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor
Robert Rubin Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government ...
. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as
Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
."Lawrence Summers (1999 - 2001),"
U.S. Treasury Department, Last Updated: 11/20/2010, retrieved March 31, 2017
While working for the Clinton administration, Summers played a leading role in the American response to the
1994 economic crisis in Mexico The Mexican peso crisis was a currency crisis sparked by the Mexican government's sudden devaluation of the peso against the U.S. dollar in December 1994, which became one of the first international financial crises ignited by capital flight ...
, the
1997 Asian financial crisis The Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East Asia and Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 and raised fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998– ...
, and the Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in the
Harvard Institute for International Development The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) was a think-tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, operating between 1974 and 2000. It was a center within Harvard University, United States. Foundation and leadershi ...
and American-advised privatization of the economies of the
post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
, and in the deregulation of the U.S financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th
president of Harvard University The president of Harvard University is the chief administrator of Harvard University and the '' ex officio'' president of the Harvard Corporation. Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to the pr ...
from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a
no-confidence A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
questions regarding his relationship with
Andrei Shleifer Andrei Shleifer ( ; born February 20, 1961) is a Russian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1991. Shleifer was awarded the biennial John Bates Clark Medal in 1999 for his seminal works i ...
, and a 2005 speech in which he offered three reasons for the under-representation of women in science and engineering, including the possibility that there exists a "different availability of aptitude at the high end", in addition to patterns of discrimination and socialization. After his departure from Harvard, Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co., and as a freelance speaker at other financial institutions, including
Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Ho ...
,
JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, t ...
,
Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi ( stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomera ...
,
Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...
and
Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ...
. Summers rejoined public service during the
Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's response to the
Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
. After his departure from the NEC in December 2010, Summers worked in the private sector and as a columnist in major newspapers. In mid-2013, his name was widely floated as the potential successor to
Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Duri ...
as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, though Obama eventually nominated Federal Reserve Vice-Chairwoman
Janet Yellen Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Yellen is ...
for the position. As of 2017, Summers retains his Harvard University status as former president emeritus and Charles W. Eliot University Professor. He also regularly writes opinion columns for ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
''.


Family and education

Summers was born in
New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
, on November 30, 1954, into a
Jewish family Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"" ...
, the son of two economists, Robert Summers (who changed the family surname from Samuelson) and Anita Summers (of
Romanian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after ...
ancestry), who are both professors at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
. He is also the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics:
Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...
(brother of Robert Summers) and
Kenneth Arrow Kenneth Joseph Arrow (23 August 1921 – 21 February 2017) was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. He was the joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with John Hicks in 1972. In economi ...
(brother of Anita Arrow Summers). He spent most of his childhood in Penn Valley,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, a suburb of
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, where he attended Harriton High School. At age 16, he entered
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
(MIT), where he originally intended to study
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
but soon switched to
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
( S.B., 1975). He was also an active member of the MIT debating team and qualified for participation in the annual National Debate Tournament three times. He attended
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
as a graduate student ( Ph.D., 1982). In 1983, at age 28, Summers became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. It was also during this time that Summers was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He underwent treatment and has since remained cancer-free. He was a visiting academic at the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...
in 1987. Summers has three children (older twin daughters Ruth and Pamela and son Harry) with his first wife, Victoria Joanne (Perry). In December 2005, Summers married English professor
Elisa New Elisa New (born 1958) is an American academic who is the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. Early life and education She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Maryland. New's father was an e ...
, who has three daughters (Yael, Orli and Maya) from a previous marriage. He lives in
Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and ...
.


Career


Academic economist

As a researcher, Summers has made important contributions in many areas of economics, primarily
public finance Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achiev ...
, labor economics,
financial economics Financial economics, also known as finance, is the branch of economics characterized by a "concentration on monetary activities", in which "money of one type or another is likely to appear on ''both sides'' of a trade". William F. Sharpe"Financia ...
, and
macroeconomics Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
. Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography,
economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and i ...
and
development economics Development economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural ...
. He received the
John Bates Clark Medal The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded 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." The award is named after the ...
in 1993 from the American Economic Association. In 1987, he was the first social scientist to win the Alan T. Waterman Award from the
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
. Summers is also a member of the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
. Some of his popular courses today, as Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, include American Economic Policy and The Political Economy of Globalization.


Public official

Summers was on the staff of the
Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical rese ...
under President Reagan in 1982–1983. He also served as an economic adviser to the Dukakis Presidential campaign in 1988.


Chief Economist at the World Bank

Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as Vice President of Development Economics and
Chief Economist Chief economist is a single-position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis. It is distinguished from the other economist positions by the broader scope of respons ...
for the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
until 1993. According to the World Bank's Data & Research office (March, 2017), Summers returned to Washington, D.C. in 1991 as the World Bank's Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist. As such, Summers played a "key role" in designing strategies to aid developing countries, worked on the bank's loan committee, guided the bank's research and statistics operations, and guided external training programs. The World Bank's official site also reports that Summer's research included an "influential" report that demonstrated a very high return from investments in educating girls in developing nations. According to ''The Economist,'' Summers was "often at the centre of heated debates" about economic policy, to an extent exceptional for the history of the World Bank in recent decades."New ideas: The World Bank hires a famous contrarian,"
July 18, 2016, ''The Economist,'' retrieved March 31, 2017


"Dirty industries" controversy

In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo that was leaked to the press. Lant Pritchett has claimed authorship of the private memo, which both he and Summers say was intended as sarcasm."Furor on Memo At World Bank,"
February 7, 1992, ''The New York Times,'' retrieved March 30, 2017
The memo stated 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. ... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted." According to Pritchett, the memo, as leaked, was doctored to remove context and intended irony, and was "a deliberate fraud and forgery to discredit Larry and the World Bank.", also posted at:


Service in the Clinton Administration

In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs and later in the
United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...
under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor
Robert Rubin Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government ...
. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as
Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
. Much of Summers's tenure at the Treasury Department was focused on international economic issues. He was deeply involved in the Clinton administration's effort to bail out Mexico and Russia when those nations had currency crises. Summers set up a project through which the
Harvard Institute for International Development The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) was a think-tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, operating between 1974 and 2000. It was a center within Harvard University, United States. Foundation and leadershi ...
provided advice to the Russian government between 1992 and 1997. Later there was a scandal when it emerged that some of the Harvard project members had invested in Russia, and were therefore not impartial advisors. Summers encouraged then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin to use the same "three-'ations'" of policy he advocated in the Clinton Administration – "privatization, stabilization, and liberalization." Summers pressured the Korean government to raise its interest rates and balance its budget in the midst of a recession, policies criticized by
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was t ...
and
Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the J ...
. According to the book ''The Chastening'', by Paul Blustein, during this crisis, Summers, along with
Paul Wolfowitz Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and former dean of Johns Hopkins ...
, pushed for regime change in Indonesia. Summers was a leading voice within the Clinton Administration arguing against American leadership in
greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...
reductions and against US participation in the
Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
, according to internal documents made public in 2009. As Treasury Secretary, Summers led the Clinton Administration's opposition to tax cuts proposed by the Republican Congress in 1999. During the California
energy crisis An energy crisis or energy shortage is any significant bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In literature, it often refers to one of the energy sources used at a certain time and place, in particular, those that supply n ...
of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with
Alan Greenspan Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
and
Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compani ...
executive
Kenneth Lay Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in the eponymous accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 into the large ...
to lecture California Governor
Gray Davis Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. (born December 26, 1942) is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 to 2003. In 2003, only a few months into his second term, Davis was recalled and remov ...
on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation. Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets. Summers hailed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering
commercial banking A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with c ...
, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy." Many critics, including
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
, have suggested the
2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010 that contributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, 2007–2008 global financial crisis. It was triggered by a large decline ...
was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act. Indeed, as a member of President Clinton's
Working Group on Financial Markets The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, known colloquially as the Plunge Protection Team, or "(PPT)" was created by Executive Order 12631,, which appears and purports to be a copy of the original: signed on March 18, 1988, by Unit ...
, Summers, along with U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
(SEC) Chairman
Arthur Levitt Arthur Levitt Jr. (born February 3, 1931) is the former Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He served from 1993 to 2001 as the twenty-fifth and longest-serving chairman of the commission. Widely hailed as a c ...
, Fed Chairman Greenspan, and Secretary Rubin, torpedoed an effort to regulate the derivatives that many blame for bringing the financial market down in Fall 2008.


Views on banking regulation

On May 7, 1998, the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent agency of the US government created in 1974 that regulates the U.S. derivatives markets, which includes futures, swaps, and certain kinds of options. The Commodity Exchange Act ...
(CFTC) issued a Concept Release soliciting input from regulators, academics, and practitioners to determine "how best to maintain adequate regulatory safeguards without impairing the ability of the OTC (
over-the-counter Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid prescr ...
) derivatives market to grow and the ability of U.S. entities to remain competitive in the global financial marketplace." On July 30, 1998, then-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that "the parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies." At the time Summers stated that "to date there has been no clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation must bear the burden of demonstrating that need." In 1999 Summers endorsed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks, saying "With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st Century." When
George Stephanopoulos George Robert Stephanopoulos ( el, Γεώργιος Στεφανόπουλος ; born February 10, 1961) is an American television host, political commentator, and former Democratic advisor. Stephanopoulos currently is a coanchor with Robin Robe ...
asked Summers about the financial crisis in an ABC interview on March 15, 2009, Summers replied that "there are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last eighteen months, but what's happened at A.I.G. ... the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching ... is outrageous." In February 2009, Summers quoted
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
, saying "When circumstances change, I change my opinion", reflecting both on the failures of
Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
deregulation and his new leadership role in the government bailout. On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program, Clinton said Summers was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives.


President of Harvard

In 2001, when George W. Bush became
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
, Summers left the Treasury Department and returned to Harvard as its 27th president, serving from July 2001 until June 2006. He is considered Harvard's first Jewish president, though his predecessor Neil Rudenstine had Jewish ancestry, and received praise from Harvard's Jewish community for his support. A number of Summers's decisions at Harvard have attracted public controversy, either at the time or since his resignation.


Cornel West affair

In an October 2001 meeting, Summers criticized African American Studies department head Cornel West for allegedly missing three weeks of classes to work on the
Bill Bradley William Warren Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He served three terms as a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey (1979–1997). He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination f ...
presidential campaign, and complained that West was contributing to
grade inflation Grade inflation (also known as grading leniency) is the awarding of higher grades than students deserve, which yields a higher average grade given to students. The term is also used to describe the tendency to award progressively higher academic ...
. Summers also claimed that West's "rap" album was an "embarrassment" to the university. West pushed back strongly against the accusations. "The hip-hop scared him. It's a stereotypical reaction", he said later. West, who later called Summers both "uninformed" and "an unprincipled power player" in describing this encounter in his book ''Democracy Matters'' (2004), subsequently returned to
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, where he had taught prior to
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
.


Differences between the sexes

In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the
National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...
, Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented "in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions". The conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later. Summers had prefaced his talk, saying he was adopting an "entirely positive, rather than normative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation.". January 14, 2005. Summers then began by identifying three hypotheses for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions: # The high-powered job hypothesis # Different availability of
aptitude An aptitude is a component of a competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Outstanding aptitude can be considered "talent". Aptitude is inborn potential to perform certain kinds of activities, whether physical or mental, and ...
at the high end # Different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search The second hypothesis, the generally greater variability among men (compared to women) in tests of cognitive abilities, leading to proportionally more males than females at both the lower and upper tails of the test score distributions, caused the most controversy. In his discussion of this hypothesis, Summers said that "even small differences in the standard deviation etween genderswill translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out rom the mean. Summers referenced research that implied differences between the standard deviations of males and females in the top 5% of twelfth-graders under various tests. He then went on to argue that, if this research were to be accepted, then "whatever the set of attributes ... that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley ... are probably different in their standard deviations as well". Summers then concluded his discussion of the three hypotheses by saying:
So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.
Summers then went on to discuss approaches to remedying the shortage of women in high-end science and engineering positions. This lunch-time talk drew accusations of sexism and careless scholarship, and an intense negative response followed, both nationally and at Harvard.Summers' Remarks on Women Draw Fire
The Boston Globe. January 17, 2005
Summers apologized repeatedly. Nevertheless, the controversy is speculated to have contributed to his resigning his position as president of Harvard University the following year, as well as costing Summers the job of Treasury Secretary in Obama's administration. Summers's protégée
Sheryl Sandberg Sheryl Kara Sandberg (born August 28, 1969) is an American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is al ...
has defended him, saying that "Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career" at the World Bank and Treasury. Referring to the lunch talk, Sandberg said, "What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place – that he cared enough about women's careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong". In 2016, remarking upon
political correctness ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
in institutions of higher education, Summers said:
There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.


Summers' opposition and support at Harvard

On March 15, 2005, members of the
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University. Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only faculty respo ...
, which instructs graduate students in
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is the largest of the twelve graduate schools of Harvard University. Formed in 1872, GSAS is responsible for most of Harvard's graduate degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural ...
and undergraduates in
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
, passed 218–185 a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of Summers, with 18 abstentions. A second motion that offered a milder censure of the president passed 253 to 137, also with 18 abstentions. The members of the Harvard Corporation, the University's highest governing body, are in charge of the selection of the president and issued statements strongly supporting Summers. FAS faculty were not unanimous in their comments against Summers. Influential psychologist
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...
defended the legitimacy of Summers's January lecture. When asked if Summers's talk was "within the pale of legitimate academic discourse," Pinker responded "Good grief, shouldn't everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That's the difference between a university and a madrassa. There is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously." Summers had stronger support among Harvard College students than among the college faculty. One poll by ''
The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
'' indicated that students opposed his resignation by a three-to-one margin, with 57% of responding students opposing his resignation and 19% supporting it. In July 2005, a board member of Harvard Corporation, Conrad K. Harper, resigned saying he was angered both by the university president's comments about women and by Summers being given a salary increase. The resignation letter to the president said, "I could not and cannot support a raise in your salary, ... I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation."


Support of economist Andrei Shleifer

Harvard and
Andrei Shleifer Andrei Shleifer ( ; born February 20, 1961) is a Russian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1991. Shleifer was awarded the biennial John Bates Clark Medal in 1999 for his seminal works i ...
, a close friend and protégé of Summers, controversially paid $28.5 million to settle a
lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...
by the U.S. government over the
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
Shleifer had while advising Russia's privatization program. The US government had sued Shleifer under the
False Claims Act The False Claims Act (FCA), also called the "Lincoln Law", is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies (typically federal contractors) who defraud governmental programs. It is the federal government's primary litigat ...
, as he bought
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
n stocks while designing the country's
privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
. In 2004, a federal judge ruled that while Harvard had violated the contract, Shleifer and his associate alone were liable for treble damages. In June 2005, Harvard and Shleifer announced that they had reached a tentative settlement with the US government. In August, Harvard, Shleifer, and the
Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million worth of damages. Because Harvard paid almost all of the damages and allowed Shleifer to retain his faculty position, the settlement provoked allegations of favoritism by Summers. His continued support for Shleifer strengthened Summers's unpopularity with other professors, as reported in ''The Harvard Crimson'': In an 18,000-word article "How Harvard Lost Russia" in ''
Institutional Investor An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...
'' by David McClintick (January 2006), the magazine detailed Shleifer's alleged efforts to use his inside knowledge of and sway over the Russian economy in order to make lucrative personal investments, all while leading a Harvard group, advising the Russian government, that was under contract with the U.S. The article suggests that Summers shielded his fellow economist from disciplinary action by the university, and it noted that Summers had forewarned Shleifer and his wife Nancy Zimmerman about the conflict-of-interest regulations back in 1996. Summers's friendship with Shleifer was well known by the corporation when it selected him to succeed Rudenstine and Summers recused himself from all proceedings with Shleifer, whose case was actually handled by an independent committee led by former Harvard president
Derek Bok Derek Curtis Bok (born March 22, 1930) is an American lawyer and educator, and the former president of Harvard University. Life and career Bok was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Following his parents' divorce, he, his mother, brother and sist ...
.


Connection to Jeffrey Epstein

An article in ''The Harvard Crimson'' in 2003, during Summers's tenure as president, detailed a reportedly "special connection" between Summers and Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein pledged to donate at least $25 million to Harvard during Summers's tenure to endow Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein was given an office at Harvard for his personal use. Epstein otherwise had no formal connection to Harvard. Summers's ties to Epstein reportedly began "a number of years...before Summers became Harvard’s president and even before he was the Secretary of the Treasury." Flight records introduced as evidence in the 2021 trial of Epstein associate
Ghislaine Maxwell Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British convicted sex offender and former socialite. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the financier and convicted sex o ...
show that Summers flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane on at least four occasions, including once in 1998 when Summers was
United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury The United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, in the United States government, advises and assists the Secretary of the Treasury in the supervision and direction of the Department of the Treasury and its activities, and succeeds the Secret ...
and at least three times while Harvard president. A charity funded by Epstein also donated to the production of a PBS show hosted by Summers's wife and Harvard professor
Elisa New Elisa New (born 1958) is an American academic who is the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. Early life and education She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Maryland. New's father was an e ...
.


Winklevoss twins and Facebook

In February 2004, the Winklevoss twins requested a meeting with Summers in order to ask him to intervene on their behalf in an ongoing dispute they had with
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
founder
Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...
. The Winklevosses believed that Zuckerberg had stolen their idea for a social networking website and launched Facebook on his own, after they had asked him to be a part of their project, then called HarvardConnection. Summers believed that the matter was outside the university's jurisdiction, and advised the twins to take their complaint to the courts.


Resignation as Harvard President

On February 21, 2006, Summers announced his intention to step down at the end of the school year effective June 30, 2006. Harvard agreed to provide Summers on his resignation with a one-year paid
sabbatical A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work. The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of '' shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According ...
leave, subsidized a $1 million outstanding loan from the university for his personal residence, and provided other payments. Former University President
Derek Bok Derek Curtis Bok (born March 22, 1930) is an American lawyer and educator, and the former president of Harvard University. Life and career Bok was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Following his parents' divorce, he, his mother, brother and sist ...
acted as Interim President while the University conducted a search for a replacement which ended with the naming of
Drew Gilpin Faust Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian and was the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman to serve in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or gradu ...
on February 11, 2007.


Post-Harvard presidency career

After a one-year sabbatical, Summers subsequently accepted Harvard University's invitation to serve as the Charles W. Eliot University Professor, one of 20 select University-wide professorships, with offices in the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School. In 2006 he was also a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons which reviewed the work of the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the ...
. He is a member in the
Group of Thirty The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sect ...
. He also currently serves on the
Berggruen Institute The Berggruen Institute is a Los Angeles-based think tank founded by Nicolas Berggruen. History In 2010, Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels sat down with a group of academics, business leaders, and political veterans in California to discu ...
's 21st Century Council, and was part of a 2015 Berggruen-organized meeting with Chinese president
Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...
.


Business interests

On October 19, 2006, Summers was hired as a part-time managing director of the New York-based hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. for which he received $5 million in salary and other compensation over a 16-month period. At the same time Summers earned $2.7 million in speaking fees from major financial institutions, including
Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Ho ...
,
JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, t ...
,
Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi ( stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomera ...
,
Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...
and
Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ...
. Upon being nominated Treasury Secretary by President Clinton in 1999, Summers listed assets of about $900,000 and debts, including a mortgage, of $500,000. By the time he returned in 2009 to serve in the Obama administration, he reported a net worth between $17 million and $39 million. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group. In 2013, Summers became an early angel investor in India's first car rental company,
Zoomcar Zoomcar is an Indian car sharing platform, headquartered in Bangalore. The company was founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran. It currently operates in 34+ cities. History American duo David Back & Greg Moran, met while studying at the ...
, which was started by his former
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
Teaching Fellow.


National Economic Council

Upon the inauguration of
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
as president in January 2009, Summers was appointed to the post of director of the National Economic Council. In this position Summers emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration, where he attracted both praise and criticism. There had been friction between Summers and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as Volcker accused Summers of delaying the effort to organize a panel of outside economic advisers, and Summers had cut Volcker out of White House meetings and had not shown interest in collaborating on policy solutions to the economic crisis. On the other hand, Obama himself was reportedly thrilled with the work Summers did in his first few weeks on the job. And Peter Orszag, another top economic advisor, called Summers "one of the world's most brilliant economists." According to
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
Larry Summers should "be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas." In January 2009, as the
Obama Administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...
tried to pass an economic stimulus spending bill, Representative
Peter DeFazio Peter Anthony DeFazio (; born May 27, 1947) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving since 1987. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes Eugene, Springfield, Corvallis, Roseburg, Coos Ba ...
( D- OR.) criticized Summers, saying that he thought that President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
is "ill-advised by Larry Summers. Larry Summers hates infrastructure." DeFazio, along with liberal economists including
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was t ...
and
Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the J ...
, had argued that more of the stimulus should be spent on infrastructure, while Summers had supported tax cuts. In late 2008, Summers and economic advisors for then-President-elect Obama presented a memo with options for an economic stimulus package ranging from $550 billion to $900 billion. According to ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
'', economic advisor
Christina Romer Christina Duckworth Romer (née Duckworth; born December 25, 1958) is the Class of 1957 Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administ ...
initially recommended a $1.8-trillion package, which proposal Summers quickly rejected, believing any stimulus approaching $1 trillion would not pass through Congress. Romer revised her recommendation to $1.2 trillion, which Summers agreed to include in the memo, but Summers struck the figure at the last minute. According to the ''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', Summers called Senator
Chris Dodd Christopher John Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011. Dodd is the List of United Sta ...
(D- CT) asking him to remove caps on executive pay at firms that have received stimulus money, including Citigroup. On April 3, 2009 Summers came under renewed criticism after it was disclosed that he was paid millions of dollars the previous year by companies which he now had influence over as a
public servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
. He earned $5 million from the
hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as ...
D. E. Shaw, and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from
Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
companies that received government
bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global sys ...
money.


Post-NEC career

Since leaving the NEC in December 2010, Summers has worked as an advisor to hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co, Citigroup and the
NASDAQ OMX Group Nasdaq, Inc. is an American multinational financial services corporation that owns and operates three stock exchanges in the United States: the namesake Nasdaq stock exchange, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and the Boston Stock Exchange, a ...
while resuming his role as a tenured Harvard professor. In June 2011 Summers joined the board of directors of Square, a company developing an electronic payment service, and became a special adviser at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He joined the board of person-to-person lending company Lending Club in December 2012. In July 2015 Summers joined the Board of Directors of Premise Data, a San Francisco-based data and analytics technology company that sources data from a global network of on-the-ground contributors. In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
to remain a member of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
ahead of the June 2016 Referendum. Summers referred to the United Kingdom's "Brexit" vote on June 23, 2016—which concluded in favor of leaving the European Union—as the "worst self-inflicted policy wound that a country has done since the Second World War". However, Summers cautioned that the result was a "wake up call for elites everywhere" and called for "responsible nationalism" in response to simmering public sentiment. In June 2016, Summers also wrote, "I believe the risks to the US and global economies of Mr Trump’s election as president are far greater han passage of Brexit If he is elected, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months. The damage would be felt far beyond the United States."


2020 presidential election

A coalition of progressive groups called on Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign to no longer use Summers as an advisor, after reports surfaced that Summers was advising the campaign on economic policy. Progressive groups like the
Sunrise Movement Sunrise Movement is an American 501(c)(4) political action organization that advocates political action on climate change. When launched in 2017, the movement's goal was to elect proponents of renewable energy in the 2018 midterm elections, fi ...
and Justice Democrats petitioned the campaign to disavow Summers, saying, "Summers's legacy is advocating for policies that contributed to the skyrocketing inequality and climate crisis we’re living with today." Following the outcry, Summers stated he would not be joining a future Biden administration, in the event that Biden defeated
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
in the
2020 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2020 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2020 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 January: ** ...
.


Candidacy for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve and governorship of the Bank of Israel

In 2013, Summers emerged as one of two leading candidates, along with
Janet Yellen Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Yellen is ...
, to succeed
Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Duri ...
as chair of the Federal Reserve. The possibility of his nomination created a great deal of controversy with some senators of both parties declaring opposition. On September 15, Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the position, writing: "I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery." During the 2013, Summers had been reported as preferred candidate by the Cabinet of Israel and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
to succeed
Stanley Fischer Stanley Fischer ( he, סטנלי פישר; born October 15, 1943) is an Israeli American economist who served as the 20th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017. Fisher previously served as the 8th governor of the Bank of Israel fr ...
as governor of the
Bank of Israel The Bank of Israel ( he, בנק ישראל, ar, بنك إسرائيل) is the central bank of Israel. The bank's headquarters is located in Kiryat HaMemshala in Jerusalem with a branch office in Tel Aviv. The current governor is Amir Yaron. ...
. Netanyahu personally asked him to take the post, an offer he turned down.


Criticism of the Biden Administration

Summers emerged as an early opponent of the macroeconomic policy employed by President Joe Biden, charging the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 as "the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years." The macroeconomic framework, Summers holds, risks an economic recession and market destabilization.


In popular culture

The 2010 film '' The Social Network'', which deals with the founding of the social networking site
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
, shows Summers (played by
Douglas Urbanski Douglas Urbanski is an American film producer and occasional film actor. He is a twice Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe Nominated and BAFTA-winning motion picture producer. Life and career Urbanski was born in Somerville, New Jersey. In addition t ...
), in his then-capacity as President of Harvard, meeting with
Cameron Cameron may refer to: People * Clan Cameron, a Scottish clan * Cameron (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Cameron (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) ;Mononym * Cam'ron (born 1 ...
and
Tyler Winklevoss Tyler Howard Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) is an American investor, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, and Olympic rower. Winklevoss co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with ...
to discuss their accusations against
Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...
. In the 2010 documentary ''
Inside Job An insider threat is a malicious threat to an organization that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates, who have inside information concerning the organization's security ...
'', Summers is presented as one of the key figures behind the
financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...
. Charles Ferguson points out the economist's role in what he characterizes as the deregulation of many domains of the financial sector. In ''
The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, ...
'' episode "E My Sports" (S30 E17), first broadcast March 17, 2019, the character Principal Seymour Skinner looks at a $100 bill and remarks "$100 bill, autographed by Lawrence Summers. Such a carefree signature, before the great recession."


See also

* Economic policy of the Barack Obama administration


References


External links


Faculty page
at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Profile
at the U.S. Treasury Department
Lawrence Summers
at
Big Think Big Think is a multimedia web portal founded in 2007 by Victoria Brown and Peter Hopkins. The website is a collection of interviews, presentations, and round table discussions with experts from a wide range of fields. Victoria Brown is the acti ...
* * * * *
''Voices on Antisemitism'' Interview with Lawrence Summers
from the
US Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...
, February 15, 2007
Robert Scheer on Resignation of Lawrence Summers
– video report by ''
Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
'', September 22, 2010
Summers' policy proposals
to ameliorate the "devastating consequences" of the capacity of capital employing robots, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, and similar technologies "to replace white-collar as well as blue-collar work," '' Democracy: A Journal of Ideas,'' Issue #32, Spring 2014
Membership
at the
Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is a nonprofit organization that is independent and nonpartisan. CFR is based in New York Ci ...
, - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Summers, Lawrence 1954 births Living people 20th-century American economists 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American economists 21st-century American politicians American columnists American officials of the United Nations Center for Global Development Citigroup people Clinton administration cabinet members Jeffrey Epstein Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Econometric Society Goldman Sachs people Group of Thirty Harriton High School alumni Harvard Kennedy School faculty Harvard University alumni Jewish American economists Jewish American members of the Cabinet of the United States JPMorgan Chase people Lehman Brothers people Members of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Merrill (company) people MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni Politicians from Brookline, Massachusetts Politicians from New Haven, Connecticut Presidents of Harvard University Scientists from New Haven, Connecticut The Washington Post columnists United States Secretaries of the Treasury World Bank Chief Economists New Keynesian economists