Lawrence Summers

Lawrence Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard University, with faculty appointments in the Department of Economics and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. A distinguished scholar in Business & Economics, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1982. In 1983, he became one of the youngest individuals in recent history to receive tenure at Harvard, following earlier roles as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Economics at MIT. His academic positions at Harvard have included Professor of Economics from 1983 to 1987 and Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy from 1987 to 1991. Summers' research specializations include macroeconomics, public economics, finance, international policy, and labor economics. He has made seminal contributions through works such as "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets" (1990, with J.B. De Long, A. Shleifer, and R.J. Waldmann), "Hysteresis and the European Unemployment Problem" (1986, with O.J. Blanchard), "Mean Reversion in Stock Prices: Evidence and Implications" (1988, with J.M. Poterba), and books including "Understanding Unemployment" (MIT Press, 1990) and "Tax Policy and the Economy" (editor, MIT Press, 1987-1990 editions).

Summers has held influential government positions, serving as the 71st U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under President Clinton, Director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010 under President Obama, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1993 to 1995, and Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist at the World Bank from 1991 to 1993. He was President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Currently, he directs the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Among his major awards are the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation in 1987—the first for a social scientist—the John Bates Clark Medal in 1993, the David A. Wells Prize in 1982, and honorary degrees from institutions including Yale, Princeton, and the Hebrew University. Summers edited the Quarterly Journal of Economics from 1984 to 1990 and has served on boards such as the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations. His scholarship and policy roles have profoundly influenced economic thought on unemployment dynamics, financial markets, fiscal policy, and global development.

Professional Email: lawrence_summers@harvard.edu