Larry Summers
American economist, 71st Treasury Secretary, 27th Harvard president, and NEC director.
Summers held the position of 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and was the 27th president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.[1]
Quick Facts
- Office
- 8th Director of the National Economic Council
- President
- Barack Obama
- Deputy
- Diana Farrell; Jason Furman
- Took office
- January 20, 2009
- Left office
- January 20, 2011
- Predecessor
- Keith Hennessey
- Successor
- Gene Sperling
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1982.[2] Summers served as Harvard's president from 2001 to 2006.[3] He resigned as Harvard's president after a no-confidence vote by faculty.[3] Summers served as director of the National Economic Council for President Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010.[4]
Summers began his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he was 16 years old, completing his degree in 1975.[5] At 28 years of age in 1983, Summers achieved tenure at Harvard, making him one of the youngest professors ever to do so there.[6] From 1991 until 1993, Summers took a leave from Harvard to act as the chief economist for the World Bank.[7] The role of Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury was given to Summers in 1993.[7]
A leave of absence from his Harvard teaching duties was taken by Summers in November 2025 because of an inquiry concerning his connections with Jeffrey Epstein.[8]
What the cited sources add
The World Bank Live account states that Summers's tenure at the U.S. Treasury coincided with the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.[9] The same article noted that Epstein pledged at least $25 million to Harvard during Summers's tenure.[10] A 2006 Harvard Crimson article detailed faculty anger over Summers's handling of the Andrei Shleifer affair.[11] The World Bank Live account reports that Summers chairs the board of the Center for Global Development.[9]
The National Science Foundation's Alan Waterman Award was given to Summers, making him the inaugural social scientist to receive this honor, as per the same source.[9] According to a 2003 Harvard Crimson article, Summers and Epstein were both members of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.[12]
References
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "From the Directors", www.hks.harvard.edu; "Historical Facts", Harvard University, retrieved March 31, 2017; Arsenault, "Lawrence Summers Will Resign From Harvard After Epstein Revelations", The New York Times, 25 February 2026 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Summers, "An asset price approach to the analysis of capital income taxation", Harvard University, 1982 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Full Transcript: President Summers' Remarks at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Jan. 14 2005", The Harvard Crimson, February 18, 2005 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Lawrence H. Summers", World Bank Live; "From the Directors", www.hks.harvard.edu (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Plotz, "Larry Summers. How the Great Brain learned to grin and bear it.", Slate, 2001-06-30 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Obama's LSE alumni", London School of Economics (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Former Chief Economists" , Data & Research office, The World Bank, retrieved March 31, 2017; "Lawrence H. Summers", World Bank Live; "From the Directors", www.hks.harvard.edu (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "From the Directors", www.hks.harvard.edu; Summers, Lawrence H. and John A. Haigh "From the Directors," About section, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School of Gover; Arsenault, "Lawrence Summers to Stop Teaching at Harvard While It Investigates His Epstein Ties", The New York Times, 2025-11-20 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Lawrence H. Summers", World Bank Live. facts only, no text reused. live.worldbank.org
- Wikipedia, "Larry Summers" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Scharnick, "Mogul Donor Gives Harvard More Than Money", The Harvard Crimson, May 1, 2003; Ward, "The Talented Mr. Epstein", March 2003; "Program for Evolutionary Dynamics", ped.fas.harvard.edu; Scharnick, "Mogul Donor Gives Harvard More Than Money", The Harvard Crimson, May 1, 2003; Scharnick, "Mogul Donor Gives Harvard More Than Money", The Harvard Crimson, May 1, 2003; "Epstein Flight Logs Released in USA vs. Maxwell"; Briquelet, "Revealed: We Found Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Secret Charity", The Daily Beast, July 10, 2019; en.wikipedia.org
- Nicholas Ciarelli, "'Tawdry Shleifer Affair' Stokes Faculty Anger Toward Summers", The Harvard Crimson, 10 Feb 2006. facts only, no text reused. thecrimson.com
- Scharnick, "Mogul Donor Gives Harvard More Than Money", The Harvard Crimson, May 1, 2003. facts only, no text reused. thecrimson.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Larry Summers (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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