Personality Spotlight: Lawrence Summers

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers will tap experience in shaping world economic polices in his new White House role.

President-elect Barack Obama named Summers as his chief economic adviser.

Summers, 53, became U.S. treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton in 1999. During his tenure, the United States used budget surpluses to repurchase treasury debt for the first time since the 1920s, and extended the life of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

He also led efforts to modernize the financial system, extend financial privacy protections, provide for digital signatures and insure the viability of the over-the-counter derivatives market. Summers advocated reforms to address corporate tax shelters and predatory lending practices.

Summers had served earlier in the 1990s as undersecretary for iternational affairs and as deputy treasury secretary, where he worked closely with Secretaries Lloyd Bentsen and Robert Rubin to formulate domestic and international economic policies.

From 1991 to 1993, Summers served as chief economist of the World Bank, where he played a key role in designing strategies to assist developing countries.