Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House's National Economic Council and President Obama's Chief Economic Adviser, discusses America's economic landscape in a post-recession world, for the National Constitution Center's Eighth Annual John M. Templeton, Jr. Lecture on Economic Liberties and the Constitution.
George L. Priest, Professor of Law and Economics and Kauffman Distinguished Research Scholar in Law, Economics, and Entrepreneurship at Yale Law School, delivers the response. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School, moderates.
Bio
R. Glenn Hubbard
Glenn Hubbard was named dean of Columbia Business School on July 1, 2004. A Columbia faculty member since 1988, he is also the Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics. As a faculty member at Columbia University's Graduate School
of Arts and Sciences, he is professor of economics.
Professor Hubbard received his BA and BS degrees summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida, where he received the National Society of Professional Engineers Award. He holds AM and PhD degrees in economics from Harvard University, where he received fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
He has been a visiting professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School, as well as the University of Chicago. Professor Hubbard also held the John M. Olin Fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research, at which he remains affiliated with research programs in monetary economics, public economics, corporate finance, and industrial organization.
Additionally, he is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a member of the International Advisory Board of the MBA Program of Ben-Gurion University.
George L. Priest
George L. Priest is Professor of Law and Economics and Kauffman Distinguished Research Scholar in Law, Economics, and Entrepreneurship at Yale Law School.
Lawrence Summers
Lawrence H. Summers is the Director of the National Economic Council. He was appointed by President Barack H. Obama on November 24, 2008.
Until January, he was the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. He served as the 27th president of Harvard University from July 2001 until June 2006. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury following his earlier service as Deputy and Under Secretary of the Treasury and as Chief Economist of the World Bank.
Summers has taught economics at Harvard and MIT. His research contributions were recognized when he received the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40, and when he was the first social scientist to receive the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award for outstanding scientific achievement. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and has written extensively on economic analysis and policy publishing over 150 articles in professional economic journals.
Lawrence Summers received his B.S. from MIT and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.
Downward trend in the business cycle characterized by a decline in production and employment, which in turn lowers household income and spending. Even though not all households and businesses experience actual declines in income, they become less certain about the future and consequently delay making large purchases or investments. Consumers buy fewer durable household goods, and businesses are less likely to purchase machinery and equipment and more likely to use up existing inventory instead of adding goods to their stock. This drop in demand leads to a corresponding fall in output and thus worsens the economic situation. Whether a recession develops into a severe and prolonged depression depends on a number of circumstances. Among them are the extent and quality of credit extended during the previous period of prosperity, the amount of speculation permitted, the ability of government monetary and fiscal policies to reverse (or minimize) the downward trend, and the amount of excess productive capacity. Comparedepression.
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