Sir Ernest Henry Phelps Brown MBE, FBA (10 February 1906 – 15 December 1994) was a prominent British economist.
[1][3] Phelps Brown joined the British Army at the outbreak of World War II and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.
Phelps Brown remained at LSE until his retirement in 1968, at which time he returned to live in Oxford and spent the last 20 years of his life writing on various economic topics.
'My starting point is the smallness of the contribution that the most conspicuous developments of economics in the last quarter of a century have made to the solution of the most pressing problems of the times' and among these problems he lists 'checking the adverse effects on the environment and the quality of life of industrialism, population growth and urbanism'.
Phelps Brown was called to serve on this council, and sought to use an incomes policy to reduce inflation without driving higher unemployment.
[1] Phelps Brown wrote extensively on various topics in Economics and History, including textbooks and instructional aids as well as scholarly volumes and one novel based on his experiences in World War II.