Summers Schooled by Rates at Harvard Wants Job Setting Them

Lawrence Summers was president of Harvard University when in 2004 the world’s richest school came up with an inventive and ultimately flawed financial strategy.

Harvard was planning to build a state-of-the-art campus across the Charles River in Boston to complement its home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Summers, 58, now a top contender to lead the U.S. Federal Reserve, approved a $2.3 billion financing method for the project that backfired in 2008 after he resigned, costing the university more than $900 million to unwind.