Lawrence Summers
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| Lawrence Summers | |
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| In office July 2, 1999 – January 20, 2001 |
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| Preceded by | Robert Rubin |
| Succeeded by | Paul H. O'Neill |
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| Born | November 30, 1954 New Haven, Connecticut |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Profession | Academic, economist |
Lawrence Henry "Larry" Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist and academic. He is the 1993 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal for his work in macroeconomics, was Secretary of the Treasury for the last year and a half of the Bill Clinton administration, and served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.
Summers resigned his position as president of Harvard University amidst controversy on June 30, 2006, and was replaced by former University President Derek Bok as acting Interim President the next day. Summers returned to the University following a sabbatical for the 2006-07 academic year as one of Harvard's select University Professors. Separately, as announced on October 19, 2006, he became a part-time managing director of the investment and technology development firm D. E. Shaw & Co.
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[edit] Early life
Born to a Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 30, 1954, Summers is the son of two economists – both professors at the University of Pennsylvania – as well as the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics: Paul Samuelson (sibling of father Robert Summers, who, following an older brother's example, changed the family name from Samuelson to Summers) and Kenneth Arrow (his mother Anita Summers's brother). He spent most of his childhood in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he attended Harriton High School.
At age 16, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he originally intended to study physics but soon switched to economics (B.S., 1975). He was also an active member of the MIT debating team. He attended Harvard University as a graduate student (Ph.D., 1982), where he studied under economist Martin Feldstein. He has had stints teaching at both MIT and Harvard. In 1983, at age 28, Summers became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. Recently, in December 2005, Summers married a Harvard English professor, Dr. Elisa New. Summers has three children by his first wife, Victoria Perry.
[edit] Professional life
[edit] Academic economist
As a researcher, Summers has made important contributions in many areas of economics, primarily public finance, labor economics, financial economics, and macroeconomics.[citation needed] To a lesser extent, Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography, economic history, and development economics. His work generally emphasizes 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 Medal 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. He is among the 20 best economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. Summers is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.
[edit] Public official and educational administrator
Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as Chief Economist for the World Bank (1991–1993) and later in various posts in the United States Department of the Treasury under the Clinton 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 2006 he was a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons which reviewed the work of The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development or UNCTAD.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]
[edit] Controversies
[edit] World Bank Pollution Memo
In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo written by staff economist Lant Pritchett which argued among other things (according to its author; the full memo is not public) that free trade would not necessarily benefit the environment in developing countries. Pritchett also drafted what he referred to as an ironic aside to the memo which Summers also signed. The aside was leaked to the press and stated that, developed countries ought to export more pollution to developing countries because these countries would incur the lowest cost from the pollution in terms of lost wages of people made ill or killed by the pollution due to the fact that wages are so low in developing countries. The aside went on to state 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"[13] Public outcry ensued when the aside was leaked.
[edit] Cornel West
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In the fall of 2001 the US national media focused their attention on a private meeting in which Summers criticized prominent African-American Studies professor Cornel West, for missing too many classes, contributing to grade inflation, and neglecting serious scholarship. 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, where he taught prior to Harvard University.
[edit] Differences between the sexes
In January 2005, Summers suggested, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the possibility that many factors outside of socialization could explain why there were more men than women in high-end science and engineering positions. He suggested one such possible reason could be men's higher variance in relevant innate abilities or innate preference.[14][15] An attendee made Summers' remarks public, and an intense response followed in the national news media and on Harvard's campus.[16] Psychologist Steven Pinker argued in an interview in the Harvard Crimson that Summers' remarks were scientifically justified and should not be considered offensive as part of academic discourse.
[edit] Summers' opposition and support at Harvard
On March 15, 2005, members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in GSAS and undergraduates in Harvard College, 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. Both of those votes were merely advisory, since it is the members of the Harvard Corporation that have the authority to hire and fire the president.
Summers had stronger support among Harvard College students than among the college faculty. One poll by the Harvard Crimson indicated that students opposed his resignation by a three-to-one margin, with 57% of responding students opposing his resignation and 19% supporting it.[17]
In July 2005, the only African-American 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. (Some reports suggest Harper's support of Summers may have first started to erode earlier because of the Cornel West controversy.) 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."[18][19]
[edit] The AIDS Drug Scandal with HSPH
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In December 2003, the Bush administration formally commenced a program to combat the AIDS pandemic devastating much of the developing world. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, committed $15 billion over five years to that task. Two Harvard University teams submitted grant applications—one from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the other from Harvard Medical School (HMS). In February 2004, Harvard learned that the HSPH had been awarded one of four initial PEPFAR grants, and that the medical school's application had been rejected.
The HSPH grant was to be used to treat AIDS patients in Nigeria and Tanzania with life-prolonging drugs, and to train health workers in Botswana. Dr. Phyllis Kanki was the leader of the HSPH team. Summers was concerned about potential risks—lawsuits and the possibility of AIDS drugs hitting the black market—especially since he wasn't controlling the grant.
Summers decided to simply take control. Summers believed that despite Kanki's accomplishments and extensive experience with HIV/AIDS programs in Africa, Kanki was unfit to lead the mammoth grant because she is a veterinarian, not a medical doctor.
[edit] Support of economist Andrei Shleifer
Harvard and Andrei Shleifer, a close friend and protege of Summers, settled a $26M lawsuit by the U.S. government over the conflict of interest Shleifer had while advising Russia's privatisation program. Summers' continued support for Shleifer strengthened Summers' unpopularity with other professors:
"I’ve been a member of this Faculty for over 45 years, and I am no longer easily shocked," is how Frederick H. Abernathy, the McKay professor of mechanical engineering, began his biting comments about the Shleifer case at Tuesday’s fiery Faculty meeting. But, Abernathy continued, "I was deeply shocked and disappointed by the actions of this University" in the Shleifer affair.
In an 18,000-word article in Institutional Investor (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.[20] However, the case actually was filed in 2000, the year before Summers became Harvard's president. Summers' 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 Derek Bok.
[edit] 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. Former University President Derek Bok has acted as Interim President while the University conducted a search for a replacement which ended with the naming of Drew Gilpin Faust on February 11, 2007. Summers has been invited and agreed to return to the University following a planned sabbatical for the 2006-07 academic year as Charles W. Eliot University Professor, one of twenty select University-wide professorships, with offices in the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School.[21] In October 2006, the D. E. Shaw Group announced that Summers would serve as one of their part time managing directors.[22] Summers also has been authoring a column for the Financial Times.[23] Though no longer President, Summers is still beloved by many students. On June 2, 2008, the Harvard College Class of 2008 invited Summers to a reception where they expressed their appreciation for his leadership and made him an honorary member of the class of 2008. [24]
[edit] References
- ^ Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Lawrence Summers from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ^ Who Is Larry Summers? BusinessWeek, May 24, 1999
- ^ How the Great Brain Learned to Grin and Bear it Slate, June 29, 2001
- ^ Renaissance Man The Guardian, October 5, 2004
- ^ Institutional Investor: How Harvard Lost Russia
- ^ Lawrence of Absurdia
- ^ Harvard Radical NY Times, Aug 23, 2003
- ^ Lawrence Summers: Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce
- ^ Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
- ^ Finder, Alan and Kate Zernike (February 21, 2006)
- ^ Harvard President Has Decided to Resign, Officials Say. New York Times
- ^ How Larry Got His Rep, The Harvard Crimson, 2005-03-03, a long background piece on how the press spun the controversies around Summers
- ^ The Lawrence Summers Memo December 12, 1991
- ^ Summer's Remarks on Women Draw Fire, 2005 January 17
- ^ Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce
- ^ Larry V. Hedges; Amy Nowell (1995). "Sex Differences in Mental Test Scores, Variability, and Numbers of High-Scoring Individuals". Science 269: 41-45.
- ^ Poll: Students Say Summers Should Stay February 20, 2006
- ^ A Harvard Governor, Dissatisfied, Resigns July 29, 2005
- ^ Board Member's Letter of Resignation August 2, 2005
- ^ ‘Tawdry Shleifer Affair’ Stokes Faculty Anger Toward Summers February 10, 2006
- ^ Schuker, Daniel J. T.. "Summers Named Eliot Univ. Prof", The Harvard Crimson, 7 July 2006.
- ^ Burton, Katherine. "Summers, Former Treasury Secretary, Joins D.E. Shaw", Bloomberg, 19 Oct 2006.
- ^ FT.com / Comment & analysis / Columnists / Lawrence Summers
- ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=523702
[edit] External links
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by Stanley Fischer |
World Bank Chief Economist 1991–1993 |
Succeeded by Michael Bruno |
| Preceded by Robert Rubin |
United States Secretary of the Treasury 1999–2001 |
Succeeded by Paul O'Neill |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by Neil L. Rudenstine |
President of Harvard University 2001—2006 |
Succeeded by Derek Bok, acting |
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