In memoriam Marius Ooms

In 1986 Marius began a PhD with Professor Teun Kloek at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. After his PhD, he continued as an assistant professor in Rotterdam. In 2000, Marius moved to Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as an associate professor in the Department of Econometrics and OR. Marius was a Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute almost from its inception in 1987.

Marius had a broad interest in econometrics and closely followed the new developments in the field. Not just mastering their theoretical foundations, but also how they came about, which authors were involved, who were their PhD supervisors, at which universities the research took place, etc. He liked to share this knowledge with close colleagues.

With the rise of the internet, he found a new way of sharing with a wider audience by launching econometriclinks.com. On this webpage he collated information for and from econometricians around the world. This is how Marius became a well-known figure to many young econometricians in the 1990s. The website was later taken over by the Royal Economic Society, integrated within the Econometrics Journal, and maintained by Marius.

Marius was also the founder and coordinator of the annual conference series Netherlands Econometric Study Group, which is still taking place.

It was just over 15 years ago that Marius suffered a serious stroke and had to set aside his work at VU. The first five years were primarily characterized by recovery, return, a major relapse, and then a more sustained recovery. His sharpness and analytical skills remained with him all these years. Following a sudden illness, Marius passed away peacefully in his hometown Leiden.

This is a shortened version of an in memoriam written by Jurgen Doornik (University of Oxford) and Siem Jan Koopman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).