Robert Summers (June 22, 1922 – April 17, 2012) was a renowned American economist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he joined the faculty in 1960 and conducted influential research advancing statistical methods in economics. Specializing in econometrics and international comparisons, one of his early and highly cited works analyzed the small-sample statistical properties of alternate regression estimators, providing foundational insights into econometric techniques. Summers is best known for co-developing the Penn World Table (PWT) with Alan Heston, a comprehensive dataset enabling cross-country comparisons of real GDP, productivity, and purchasing power parity, which has been widely used in economic research since the 1970s. He was married to economist Anita Summers, also a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the father of economist Lawrence Summers, who later became U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard president. Summers retired from Penn but continued influencing the field through his datasets and publications until his death.