Peter was born in Pikeville, Kentucky on January 21, 1939. He graduated from high school in West Lafayette, Indiana. In 1961 he got his undergraduate degree at Hobart and William Smith in Geneva, New York. After several years with McKinsey & Co. in Chicago, where he learned and honed his skills as a computer programmer, he attended Princeton University and was awarded his PhD in Economics in 1966.
In 1965 he moved to Washington, DC to join the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System as an Economist in the Division of Research and Statistics. After thirty-three years of service, he retired in 1998 as a Deputy Associate Director in that Division. He immediately began a second career teaching in the Faculty of Economics and Politics at the University of Cambridge, first as a Visitor and then as a permanent member, from 1998-2003. He became a full-Professor in the Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics at Birkbeck College , University of London from 2006-14.
He loved economic research and teaching and was proudly working on a graduate text on economic policy to be published by Cambridge University Press. Most of all, he looked forward to setting work aside to take annual vacations to Frisco on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with family and extended family for over 40 years.
He is survived by his second wife, Marylee, two daughters, Cathy (John) and Meg (Daniel), a step-son, Brian Hair (Janeen) He has four beloved grandchildren, Christopher, Nicholas, Risa and Senna, one sister, Molly, as well as, two “step-sons,” Adam and Brian Green (Katia) and their children Walker, Georgia, Annike and Sasha.
A memorial service will be held at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC on April 26 at 11:00 a.m. with a reception to follow at the church. A private burial will take place at Oak Hill Cemetery.
