Werner Baer, a talented and passionate professor of economics who joined the University of Illinois 42 years ago, passed away suddenly on Thursday following a brief illness, the Department of Economics announced.
Baer, born in 1931, was internationally renowned for his research on South America and specialized in Brazilian development economics. He was key to the establishment of the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies at Illinois.
His books, The Development of the Brazilian Steel Industry (1970) and Industrialization and Economic Development in Brazil (1965) shaped the field, while his Brazilian Economy: Growth and Development (1995), is now in its sixth edition. Published in several languages, it has long been the most widely read text on Brazil’s economy.
Baer was also a committed mentor to generations of students, and the lifelong ties he sustained with those whom he trained helped make Illinois a unique center for studies of Brazil. His life-long friendship with Jorge Paulo Lemann, a fellow student Baer befriended while they studied at Harvard University, led to the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies, endowed at Illinois in 2009.
Baer, along with other faculty in the Department of Economics, actively recruited students from South America. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa (PhD, ’01, economics) is among the department’s famous alumni.
In the mid-1990s, Baer used $30,000 of his own money to establish a fund for recruiting Latin American students to Illinois. When he suggested that the department seek additional funds from alumni and friends, Lemann was among the first and most generous to respond. One of the first employees Lemann, an investor, hired was a graduate of Illinois—the first of many.
The Department of Economics announced Friday on social media that Baer’s classes will continue until the end of the semester. Courses will be taught by teaching assistants under faculty supervision.
Baer was currently at work on a study of the manners in which key institutions worked within Brazil’s specific context, editing a new book, Institutional Case Studies of Brazil’s Economy.
“When he recently wrote about this collaboration with colleagues at Illinois and in Brazil, he described the volume with words we might also use to describe him: ‘the volume as a whole tells us about Brazil,’” said Jerry Dávila, the director of the Lemann Institute and the Jorge Paulo Lemann Chair in Brazilian History.
“It is hard to overstate the contributions Werner made to Brazilian studies, the field of economics, and to the University of Illinois,” Dávila said. “His passing is a moment to reflect on the many ways in which his brilliance, his boundless energy, and his commitment to his students and colleagues have reached all of us.”
Barbara Wilson, interim chancellor and Harry S. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, said Baer’s passing is a major loss for the college and the university.
“We mourn the loss of this influential, caring, and devoted scholar,” Wilson said. “He has inspired and enlightened not only generations of students, but also followers of his work around the world. His legacy will endure for years to come.”
