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LARRY SUMMERS’ SEXISM IS JEOPARDIZING HIS POWER AND PRIVILEGE, BUT
THE ENTIRE ECONOMICS PROFESSION HINDERS PROGRESS FOR WOMEN  
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Yana van der Meulen Rodgers
December 2, 2025
The Conversation
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_ The texts have ignited a new round of scrutiny of Summers and calls
for Harvard to revoke his tenure. On Dec. 2 the American Economic
Association, a professional association for economists, announced that
it had banned Summers from all its activities _

Larry Summers walks while talking into a mobile phone. Larry Summers
attends a prestigious conference in July 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho. ,
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

 

House lawmakers released damning correspondence between economist
Larry Summers and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
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on Nov. 12, 2025. The exchanges, which were among more than 20,000
newly released public documents
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documented how Summers – a former U.S. Treasury secretary and
Harvard University president – repeatedly sought Epstein’s advice
while pursuing an intimate relationship with a woman he was mentoring
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The two men exchanged texts and emails until July 5, 2019
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the day before Epstein was arrested on federal charges of the sex
trafficking of minors. That was more than a decade after Epstein
pleaded guilty
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to soliciting prostitution from a girl who was under 18. Epstein died
by suicide
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that August, while in jail.

“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a
major error of judgement,” Summers wrote in a statement to The
Crimson, Harvard’s newspaper, after the documents came to light
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“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have
caused,” he said in another statement
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The texts have ignited a new round of scrutiny
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of Summers and calls for Harvard to revoke his tenure
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And on Dec. 2 the American Economic Association, a professional
association for economists, announced that it had banned Summers from
all its activities
[[link removed]] for the rest of
his life.

[Four women hold photos of Jeffrey Epstein aloft.]
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Protesters hold signs bearing photos of convicted sex criminal and
Larry Summers confidante Jeffrey Epstein in front of a federal
courthouse on July 8, 2019, in New York City. Stephanie Keith/Getty
Images
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Prestigious career is unraveling

These revelations are leading to the unraveling of Summers’
prestigious career
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The 70-year-old economist went on leave from teaching at Harvard on
Nov. 19
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He has also stepped down from several boards
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on which he was serving, including Yale University’s Budget Lab,
OpenAI and two think tanks – the Center for American Progress and
the Center for Global Development.

In addition, Harvard has launched an investigation
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into whether Summers and other people affiliated with the university
broke university policies through their interactions with Epstein and
should be subject to disciplinary action.

Many organizations had already severed their ties with Summers before
the American Economic Association followed suit. Summers’ withdrawal
from public commitments
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include his role as a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV and as a
contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He also withdrew
from the Group of 30
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international group of financial and economics experts.

 

Choice of a wingman was problematic

The correspondence that surfaced in late 2025 indicated that the
prominent economist had engaged in more than casual banter with a
convicted sex criminal.

Epstein called himself Summers’ “wing man.” Summers asked
Epstein about “getting horizontal
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with his mentee – a female economist who had studied at Harvard.
And, not for the first time, Summers questioned the intelligence of
women
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Summers, who is one of the nation’s most influential economists
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also complained about the growing intolerance among the “American
elite” of sexual misconduct
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These comments call into question Summers’ judgment, behavior and
beliefs and the power dynamics between him and the women he has
mentored.

As a female economist
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board member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics
Profession, I wasn’t surprised by the latest revelations, shocking
as they may appear.

After all, it was Summers’ disparaging remarks about what he said
was women’s relative inability to do math
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that led him to relinquish the Harvard presidency
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in 2006. And researchers have been documenting for years the gender
bias [[link removed]] that pervades the
profession of economics.

A leaky pipeline in higher education

Summers taught my first-year Ph.D. macroeconomics course before he
became a prominent policymaker during the Clinton administration, and
he advised me during his office hours. Thankfully I did not experience
any sexual harassment, but as an economics doctoral candidate at
Harvard in the late 1980s, I did gain firsthand insight into the
elitist culture of the nation’s top economics program
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Back then, only about 1 in 5 of the people who earned a Ph.D. in
economics in the U.S. were women. This percentage rose to 30.5% by
1995
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and has barely budged since then.

In 2024, according to the National Science Foundation
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minted economics Ph.D.s – about 1 in 3 – in the U.S. were women, a
considerably lower share than in other social sciences, business, the
humanities and science.

After earning doctoral degrees in economics, women face a leaky
pipeline in the tenure track
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secure and prestigious academic jobs. The higher the rank, the lower
the representation of women.

In 2024, 34% of assistant professors in economics were women, but only
28% of tenured associate professors – the next step on the ladder
– were women. And just 18% of tenured full professors in economics
were women.

The gender gap is wider in influential positions
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department chairs and the editorial board members of economics
journals. As of 2019, only 24% of the 55,035 editorial board members
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were women. A brief look at the websites of the top 10 economics
departments [[link removed]] in late
2025 indicates that only one of those 10 department chairs is a woman.

Publication patterns also reflect this inequality. Women are
substantially underrepresented as authors in the top economics
journals [[link removed]], and this imbalance is
not explained by quality differences. Rather, studies have found that
women face higher hurdles in peer review
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co-authors [[link removed]].

Chilly climate

The data paints a clear picture of systemic bias in the profession’s
practices and culture. That bias influences who succeeds and who is
sidelined.

A 2019 survey by the American Economic Association
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documented widespread sexual discrimination and harassment. Almost
half of the women surveyed among the association’s members said that
they had experienced sexual discrimination that interfered with their
careers in some way, and 43% reported having experienced offensive
sexual behavior from another economist.

A follow-up survey in 2023
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indicated that the association’s new initiatives to improve the
professional climate had resulted in little improvement.

Beyond academia

Economists can influence policymakers’ decisions on interest rates,
taxation and social spending. In turn, the underrepresentation of
women in economics can hamper policymaking by limiting the range of
perspectives that inform economic decisions.

Researchers have found that arguments from female economists are
roughly 20% more persuasive in shaping public opinion
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than identical arguments from men.

And yet the gender gap still pervades economics outside academia. At
the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks
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for example, women constituted just 23% of 411 research track
economists in 2022.

Following its own code of conduct

“Economists have a professional obligation to conduct civil and
respectful discourse in all forums,” the American Economic
Association’s code of conduct
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gives all organizations in economics a clear basis for deciding
whether to keep or cut ties with Summers as the AEA has now done.
Summers may no longer attend, speak at, or otherwise participate in
any AEA-sponsored events or activities. The ban means he can no longer
serve “in any editorial or refereeing capacity for AEA journals,”
which are the most prestigious academic publications for U.S.
economists.

The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has
called for all economic institutions to undertake investigations into
Summers’ conduct
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As of early December, the extent to which economic journals and other
economics groups are responding to the controversy was still unclear.

I believe that eliminating inequity in economics would take more than
an investigation of Summers’ conduct. In my view, institutions and
professional associations, including the American Economic
Association, should strengthen and enforce codes of conduct that cover
harassment, conflicts of interest and misuse of mentorship roles.

In addition, I think that Summers’ ties to Epstein are a powerful
reminder of why university economics departments need clearer
standards and more transparency in hiring, promotions and leadership
appointments. Strengthening those standards would help them root out
the sexism and other forms of elitism that have historically marked
the profession so that academic success is driven more by merit than
self-perpetuating privilege [[link removed]].

Prior to the AEA’s announcement, it made little sense to me that the
economics profession was claiming to wield authority while tolerating
inequity and ethical lapses. I believe that the steps it’s taking
toward greater accountability will help to restore trust.

_This article was updated on Dec. 2, 2025, to include the American
Economic Association’s ban on Summers participating in its
activities._

* Economics Profession; Larry Summers and Jeffrey Epstein; Gender
Discrimination;
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