The UCSD community was saddened by the loss of longtime economics professor Walter Perrin Heller to pancreatic cancer March 2. He was 59.
Heller made many contributions to UCSD during his residency, which began in 1974 after he left the University of Pennsylvania’s economics department.
As an early member of the UCSD economics faculty, Heller played an active role in shaping the department. He was involved in research, teaching and campus land-use planning, and was distinguished in the Academic Senate as the chairman of the Campus Community and Environment Committee. On the committee, Heller helped plan construction projects for the development of the UCSD campus.
It is this sphere of Heller’s work that is, as friend and colleague Ross Starr stated, “”his most visible contribution to the UCSD campus.””
Theodore Groves, a colleague of Heller’s, said that “”Walter had a deep sense of responsibility to [the Campus Community and Environment Committee].””
According to Groves, Heller was instrumental in creating UCSD’s current master plan for development. The master plan is responsible for the five, soon to be six, colleges at UCSD and linking them in a way that accommodates pedestrians and vehicular traffic.
Heller was widely praised by his students and colleagues as an economist with solutions to economic problems that no textbook could solve. Heller’s teaching centered around economic policy and the effective allocation of resources in government services and the environment.
As a teacher and an economist, Heller was devoted to ensuring that UCSD economics students received the best education possible.
“”Walter cared deeply about economics and economic theory and wanted his students to be prepared to discuss economics and deal with public policy,”” Groves said. “”He was very concerned that the students we put out on the job market were good economists.””
Richard Carson, who also worked with Heller, said that “”[Heller] took an active role in working with assistant professors, making a concerted effort to raise the standard of teaching in the department.””
Heller was deeply concerned with his students’ quality of education and also had “”a personal warmth and really cared about his students, which certainly came through in his teaching,”” Starr said.
Heller’s research was published frequently in leading academic journals and books. Topics of those included foundations of unemployment, stability of economic growth, demand for money and use of markets to distribute resources with the risk of failure due to incompleteness or monopoly. Heller served on the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association and served as associate editor for the Journal of Economic Theory.
In 1964, Heller received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Minnesota, where Lenoid Hurwiez, eminent economist and winner of the U.S. National Medal of Science, was his professor.
Heller received his doctorate in 1970 from Stanford University, where he received dissertation guidance from Nobel Prize recipient Kenneth J. Arrow.
Starr shared an office with Heller at Stanford during his graduate years and emphasized the impact that studying under Arrow, along with UC Berkeley Nobel Prize winner Gerard Debreu, had on himself and Heller as students of economic theory.
Heller is survived by his wife Diemut, his son Nicholas, who is a sophomore at UCSD, and his daughter Marika, who is a student at Frances Parker School. Heller’s brother Eric resides in Cambridge, Mass., and his sister Karen Davis lives in Seattle.
A private memorial service is planned. Heller’s family asks that donations be made to the Walter P. Heller Memorial Fund in place of flowers.
