| Raúl Prebisch was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, in April 1901. He studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires from 1918 to 1922. In 1923 he started work as professor of Economic Policy at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, National University of Buenos Aires, a post he held until 1948. From 1930 to 1943 he worked as a public servant in the Banco Nación, moving from there to the Finance Ministry. In 1935 he was among the founders and became the first Governor of the Republic of Argentina's Central Bank, a position he held until 1943. From 1950 to 1963, Prebisch was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). He later served as General Secretary to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In 1984, he returned to Argentina to work with the democratically elected government that had assumed in 1983. He died in Santiago, Chile, in April 1986. He wrote many books, among them Towards a Dynamic Development Policy for Latin America (a 1963 report to ECLAC, originally published in Spanish as Hacia una dinámica del desarrollo latinoamericano); La crisis del desarrollo argentino (The Crisis of Argentine Development); and The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems (1950, originally published in Spanish as El desarrollo económico de América Latina y alguno de sus principales problemas, 1949). This last, known as "El Manifiesto", thrust him into the position of ECLAC Executive Secretary. Raúl Prebisch's energetic personality was apparent in his country at critical moments; he decisively influenced ideas about and paths of development for Latin America and the Caribbean; and contributed substantially to the United Nations' effort to achieve a fairer international economic order. | 
