Ernst Engel

Ernst Engel (/ˈɛŋɡəl/; German: [ˈɛŋəl]; 26 March 1821 – 8 December 1896) was a German statistician and economist, famous for the Engel curve and Engel's law. Engel was born in Dresden, then part of the Kingdom of Saxony, on 26 March, 1821. He studied at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Saxony, and on completing his curriculum traveled in Germany and France. Immediately after the revolution of 1848, Engel was attached to the royal commission in Saxony appointed to determine the relations between trade and labor. In 1850, he was directed by the government to assist in the organization of the German Industrial Exhibition of Leipzig (the first of its kind). His efforts were so successful that, in 1854, he was induced to enter the government service, as chief of the newly instituted statistical department. He retired, however, from the office in 1858. He founded at Dresden the first Mortgage Insurance Society (Hypotheken-Versicherungsgesellschaft), and as a result of the success of his work, was summoned in 1860 to Berlin as director of the statistical department, in succession to Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Dieterici. In his new office, he made himself a name of worldwide reputation. Raised to the rank of Geheimer Regierungsrat, he retired in 1882 and lived henceforward in Serkowitz, today part of Radebeul near Dresden, where he died in 1896.