Carl Christian von Weizsäcker was born 1938 in Berlin, Germany. He enrolled in studies of economics and social sciences, obtaining his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Basel. From 1965 onwards Professor von Weizsäcker taught economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was director of the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne until he retired in 2003. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods. His research focuses on welfare economics, competition policy and energy policy.