Larry Summers, Former Treasury Secretary, to Speak on Economy

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., January 6, 2012 – Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus of Harvard University, will present a lecture on the economy on Thursday, Jan. 12, at 8 p.m. in the MainStage of the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. To obtain tickets, call the ’62 Center box office at (413) 597-2425 or online at 62center.williams.edu. (This event is sold out, but tickets may be available at the door.)

Over the past two decades, Summers has held a variety of distinguished senior policy positions.  In his most recent appointment as the Director of the National Economic Council for the Obama administration, Summers tackled issues ranging from the economic stimulus package to the financial regulatory reform bill.

Summers first arrived in the White House in 1982 as a staff member on the Reagan administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.  He returned in 1993 for an appointment as Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the Clinton administration.  In 1999, Summers was named the 71^st Secretary of the Treasury.  Between positions at the White House, Summers has served as the Chief Economist for the World Bank, professor and president at Harvard, and a Financial Times columnist.

One of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard’s history, Summers is also the first social scientist to receive the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation.  He also received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40. He served as the 27^th president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

Summers has published more than 150 academic journal articles, and his economic commentary has been featured in The Washington Post, Newsweek, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the The Boston Globe.  His Financial Times column, “The Global Middle Cries Out for Reassurance,” focused on the economic issue of making globalization work for the masses.
Summers is presently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard, where he teaches courses in “Crisis Economics” and “The Future of Globalization.”  Summers received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and his Ph. D. from Harvard in 1982.

This lecture is sponsored by the Lecture Committee and the Program in Leadership Studies.

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