Anita A. Summers, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who addressed a variety of public policy topics, including zoning, education and tax incentives, died on Oct. 29 at her home in Gladwyne, PA. She was 98. Her son Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Secretary of the Treasury, confirmed the death.

She insisted that public policymaking be strengthened with economic analysis, that the business and finance world could benefit from a greater understanding of policymaking. That, in fact, was her primary task at Wharton, where she moved in 1979 after spending nearly a decade at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. She was the founding chair of Wharton’s public policy and management department, the first of its kind at a business school.

Both at the Philadelphia Fed and later at Wharton, Mrs. Summers was a leading advocate of public planning at the regional level, pushing city and state governments to collaborate on economic issues that often crossed political boundaries.