Ex-Treasury Chief to Be Obama's Top Economic Advisor

Lawrence H. Summers, a former Secretary of Treasury, was named Director of the National Economic Council by president Barack Obama on Monday.

Summers, 53, currently a professor at Harvard University, will be Obama's top economic advisor at the White House.

He served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under Bill Clinton and as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

Before being appointed Secretary, Summers served as Deputy and Under Secretary of the Treasury and as the World Bank's top economist.

Summers has taught economics at Harvard and Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT), and is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to the American economist under 40 judged to have made the most significant contribution to economics.

He played a key advisory role for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Analysts said Summers got the job mainly because his years as Treasury Secretary and his deep understanding of global economic issues, at a time when the American mortgage crisis has leaped borders to become a worldwide contagion.

In the current circumstances, the case for fiscal stimulus -- policy actions that increase short-term deficits -- is stronger than at any time in my professional lifetime. Unemployment is now almost certain to increase -- probably to the highest levels observed in a generation, he said in September.

His stormy tenure at Harvard, where his aggressive personal style and sharp-edged remarks, including an observation that women might lack an intrinsic aptitude for math and science, provoked a bitter clash with the faculty, forcing his resignation after five years as Harvard president.

Summers was born on Nov. 30, 1954, and has a graduate degree from MIT and a Ph.D. from Harvard.

He is married to a Harvard English professor and has three children. 

Source: CRIEnglish