SIPA: School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

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Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, former Director of the White House National Economic Council, andformer U.S. Secretary of theTreasury, delivered the Gabriel Silver Memorial Lecture at SIPA on December 1, 2011.

Mr. Summers shared his views on the current economic situation and how to achieve growth. "If the private sector is unable or unwilling to enable and increase its spending,' he said, "there is no alternative but for a government to be prepared on a temporary basis to expand its borrowing and expand its spending."

SIPA live-tweeted the event @ColumbiaSIPA.

Mr. Summers received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and was awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1982. In 1983, he became one of the youngest individuals in recent history to be named as a tenured member of the Harvard University faculty. In 1987 Mr. Summers became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and in 1993, he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.