Economist. He is famous for his advocacy of small scale technologies, outlined in his book "Small is Beautiful". Born in Germany, he was educated first in Bonn and Berlin before going on to study economics at Oxford and New York. He spent part of World War II interned in Britain as an "enemy alien", and used his spare time while a prisoner to write his first paper, "Multilateral Clearing". This bought him to the notice of John Meynard Keynes who secured his release to work for the British Government and later secured him a post at Oxford University. After the war he became Chief Statistician for the British Control Commission and assisted with the rebuilding of the German economy. For twenty years from 1950 he served as Chief Economic Advisor to the National Coal Board, and argued for coal to be accepted as the world's chief power source, predicting that the limited supply and high price of oil, as well as the political instability of many oil rich countries, could cause potential problems in the future. In 1955 he worked as an economic consultant in Burma, where he began to formulate what he called "Buddhist economics," the principle that technology should be user friendly, ecologically sustainable and appropriate for the size of the community where it is deployed. He continued to write widely on economics, with articles appearing in "The Times", "The Economist" and "Resurgence", but is best known for his book "Small is Beautiful", which was published in 1973 and awarded the "Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon" in 1976. This was followed by "A Guide for the Perplexed" in 1977. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1971 and spent his later years writing further articles and giving interviews and died from heart failure while on a lecture tour of Switzerland.