The Aspen Institute

In collaboration with the Aspen Economic Strategy Group and presented as part of the Hurst Lecture Series.
Featuring Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard University and former United States Secretary of the Treasury; and Robert B. Zoellick, Chair of Temasek Americas and former United States Trade Representative; in conversation with Melissa S. Kearney, director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. Americans are facing an era of economic reconfiguration driven by rising global tensions, technological change, and a populist backlash to the economic status quo. Leaders on both sides of the political aisle are increasingly turning away from free market principles and endorsing protectionist trade policies and government industrial policy. This shift threatens to end an era characterized by international economic cooperation and broad-based global growth. What does this mean for America’s economic dynamism? What steps should US policy and business leaders take to advance innovation, growth, and widespread economic prosperity?
Paepcke Auditorium, doors at 1:00 pm

This event is at capacity. If space allows, tickets will be released at the door. There will be an in-person waitlist (first-come, first-served) in Paepcke Auditorium.

Parking
Parking is very limited. Please carpool, walk, bike, or ride RFTA. 

Lawrence H. Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus of Harvard University. During the past three decades, he has served in a series of senior policy positions in Washington, D.C., including the 71st secretary of the Treasury for President Bill Clinton, director of the National Economic Council for President Barack Obama, and vice president of Development Economics and chief economist of the World Bank. He 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, Summers became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation, 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. He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University and the Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He and his wife Elisa New, a professor of English at Harvard, reside in Brookline and have six children.

Robert B. Zoellick is Chair of Temasek, Americas, an investment arm of Singapore’s sovereign fund, and Senior Counselor at Brunswick Group Geopolitical. In 2022-23, he was an Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Zoellick serves on the board of Robinhood Markets. He also chairs the International Advisory Council of Standard Chartered Bank, and serves on the Strategic Council of Swiss Re. He is a member of the boards of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Carnegie Endowment, and chairs the Global Tiger Initiative. Zoellick was the President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State, as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff. Zoellick was the lead U.S. official in the negotiations for German unification, for which the German government awarded him the Knight Commanders Cross. In 2020, he published, “America in the World: A History of US Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.” His book has been translated into Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Georgian.

Melissa S. Kearney is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group; a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of MDRC and on the Board of the Notre Dame Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. Kearney previously served as Director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings and as co-chair of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology J-PAL State and Local Innovation Initiative. Kearney’s research focuses on poverty, inequality, and social policy in the United States. Her work is published in leading academic journals and is frequently cited in the press. She is an editorial board member of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and the Journal of Economic Literature; she was previously co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources and a Senior Editor of the Future of Children. She is the author of The Two-Parent Privilege (University of Chicago Press, 2023.) Kearney teaches Public Economics at both the undergraduate and Ph.D. level at the University of Maryland. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

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