A 101-YEAR-old economics professor who pioneered work in international development after fleeing his home country has died.

Paul Patrick Streeten, who taught at Balliol College for 30 years before becoming an Honorary Fellow, inspired generations of students with his teachings.

The professor, who studied at the college in 1944 after serving during the Second World War, went on to work for the World Bank and United Nations.

When he celebrated his 100th birthday in 2017, the college flag flew in celebration of the occasion and former students and colleagues shared their recollections of the inspiring figure.

Born Paul Hornig in Austria, Prof Streeten was forced to flee Vienna in 1938 due to his political activism and links to socialist movements.

His was taken in by an English family in Sussex but in 1940 he was interned as an enemy alien and placed in several different camps.

To entertain himself and others, in each of these camps he set up lecture or literary study groups and carried this practice on into the the British army which he joined in 1942.

He was severely wounded participating in the liberation of Sicily as part of a commando group that landed behind enemy lines.

His heroics led to him becoming a UK citizen and he achieved a first in PPE at Oxford before becoming a lecturer and then a fellow of Balliol.

In the 1960s he worked at the new Ministry of Overseas Development in the UK, before becoming Warden of Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford.

He then worked at the World Bank and was involved with the United Nations Development Programme’s human development report and UNESCO’s world culture reports.

During this period he also helped to set up and edit the journal World Development in 1972.

In later years he moved to Boston University where he stayed until his retirement but always retained a close interest in Oxford and the college.

As he reached his centenary, Prof Streeten was described as a superb teacher who had great humility and always listened to differing points of view.

Friend Professor Wilfred Beckerman said he would have been described as 'saintly,' if it wasn't for his good sense of humour.

Indian Professor Deepak Nayyar , a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol in 1968, said that Prof Streeten had taught him to 'resist the authority' of the printed word and question conventional wisdom.

Prof Streeten authored seven books including the influential Economic integration in 1961.

His last work, in 2001, looked at globalisation.