The Department of Economics was deeply saddened to learn this week of the death of alumnus Michael J. Dueker, who completed his PhD in the department in 1991. A student of Professor Emeritus Charles Nelson, Dr. Dueker focused his studies on quantitative analysis. His dissertation was entitled "Two Models of Heterokurticity and its Effect on Financial Rates of Return."
Upon completion of the doctorate, Dr. Dueker took a position as staff economist in research and public information with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, working his way up to assistant vice president and research economist there before taking a position with Russell Investments in 2008. While at the St. Louis Fed, Dr. Dueker published dozens of research papers in academic journals such as the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. He also served as an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics.
At Russell, Dr. Dueker was Chief Economist for North America and a regular contributor to Russell’s Market Outlook publications, forecasting the business cycle and the target federal funds rate. He took the lead on Russell’s participation as a blue chip forecaster for both blue chip economic indicators and blue chip financial forecasts, bringing state-of-the-art empirical modeling and forecasting techniques to key economic developments, the term structure of interest rates, currency markets and tactical asset allocation.
Dr. Dueker remained involved with the Department as a member of the Economics Visiting Committee, a group of volunteer business and community leaders who feel that educating our young people about economics is an essential part of creating a prosperous future for the Pacific Northwest. Popular with students, he regularly participated in alumni career seminars organized by the student leaders of the Economics Undergraduate Board. Dr. Dueker also taught as an industry lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics for the computational and financial risk management program.