Born on 26 November 1953 in Chlumec nad Cidlinou. After graduating from the University of Economics in Prague he joined the Economic Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1978, where he worked as a researcher until 1992. Then he moved over to the post of Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics at the State Bank of Czechoslovakia. In 1996–1998 he was an adviser to the CNB Governor and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. In 1999–2005 he held the post of the CNB Vice-Governor and the associated post of alternating Governor at the World Bank. Since June 2005, he has been lecturing on financial markets, corporate finance and European economic integration at the Institute of Economic Studies at Charles University. He is the head of the Department of Macroeconomics and Econometrics and is responsible for the master’s programme in economics. In March 2007 he was appointed the national coordinator for euro adoption in the Czech Republic. In 2012 he was named professor of economic theory. He extended his education with stays at the London School of Economics, the University of Warwick and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Oldřich Dědek became a member of the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank on 13 February 2017.