Summers Discusses Development

Though he devotes most of his time to raising and spending Harvard’s money, University President Lawrence H. Summers spent this week talking about development on a global scale.

The former Treasury Secretary concluded his three-lecture series on globalization before a packed Starr Auditorium yesterday afternoon at the Kennedy School of Government.

Summers says he is currently considering publishing a book that would contain the lectures and some of his other economic essays.

Before jumping into yesterday’s topic of what industrialized nations should do to aid developing countries, Summers drew laughter from the audience as he pointed out the similarities and differences between his work in Washington, D.C. and his duties at Harvard.

“When I left Washington and returned to a university,” he quipped, “I did not leave political life.”

With a more serious tone, Summers began his speech addressing ways the U.S. can help poorer countries.

He cited education, the building of global institutions and the conditionality of assistance as the three main ways developed nations can help countries in need.

But Summers was quick to point out that international aid is not a panacea for the world’s ills.

He said he believes national security is one benefit which cannot be obtained by helping to improve the economies of less-developed nations.

“As much as I agree it is in the U.S. interest to support developing nations, those on the airplanes on Sept. 11 were not poor,” he said, adding that studies have shown most suicide-bombers to be from upper-middle-class families.

But globalization can offer other “enormously important” benefits, Summers said.

By acting multilaterally through global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the U.S. can rely on these institutions to deliver messages which may be perceived as “painful” to the countries involved.

Summers stressed the importance today of engaging in such multilateral assistance—an approach which he says the U.S. government should take more often.

“At a time when alliances are essential and these issues are being debated, it can not but damage our own interest to be as minimalist in provision of foreign assistance as we have been in recent years,” Summers said.

During Tuesday’s lecture, Summers focused on how multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF, can benefit developing nations.

Drawing on his experiences in Washington, Summers refuted the claim that the conditionality which the IMF imposes on developing nations is beyond the scope of the organization’s duties.

He said that such conditionality is only used “at a time when past policies have run out of gas and the economic trajectory of a country becomes unstable.”

And Monday night’s lecture dealt with the benefits of the involvement of industrialized nations in helping poor countries.

Summers’ advice regarding developing nations comes as Harvard fights a two-year-old lawsuit in which the government has alleged that the conduct of two University affiliates undermined a federally funded economic reform program in Russia. The parties are waiting on a judge’s decision on whether or not Harvard can be found liable for $102 million in damages without a trial.

The Godkin Lectures are held each year in memory of former political journalist Edwin Godkin. The lecture series began in 1903, and past speakers, selected by Kennedy School professors, have included Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller and the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Paul Samuelson, a Nobel-prize winning economist and Summers’ uncle, gave the lecture in 1986.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore contributed to the reporting of the story.

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.