# Helen Hughes (economist)

Helen Dolly Hughes AO FASSA (1 October 1928 – 15 June 2013) was an Australian economist. She was Professor Emerita at the Australian National University, Canberra, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney. Hughes has been described as Australia's greatest female economist.

## Biography
### Early life

Born Helen Gintz into a Jewish family on 1 October 1928, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she lived until 1939 in Česká Třebová. Hughes migrated with her parents to Melbourne in 1939, where she lived at North Brighton

### Education

Helen attended Elsternwick Primary School and Mac.Robertson Girls' High School. She completed a BA (Hons) from the University of Melbourne in 1949, winning the Marion Boothby Exhibition in British History in 1947 and 1st Place in General History in 1948. She received an MA (Hons) from Melbourne University in 1951. Her dissertation on the history of the Australian steel industry was later published as her first book. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 1954.

### Marriage and children

Hughes was married twice. She had two sons by her first marriage to Ian Hughes. In 1975 she married Graeme Dorrance, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC.

### Death

Hughes died in Sydney from complications following surgery on 15 June 2013.

## Career
### Employment

* 1955–1958 Business economist, Melbourne.
* 1959–1960 Lecturer in economics, University of New South Wales.
* 1961–1962 Senior Lecturer in economics, University of Queensland.
* 1963–1968 Research Fellow – Senior Fellow, Department of Economics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
* 1969-1983 The World Bank
** 1976–1983 Director, Economic Analysis Department.
** 1973–1975 Deputy Director, Development Economics Department.
** 1971–1973 Division Chief, Industry Division.
** 1969–1970 Senior Economist, Industry Division
* 1983–1993 Professor of Economics and Executive Director, National Centre for Development Studies, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
** 1987–1993 Member, United Nations Committee for Development Planning.
** 1984–1992 Director, International Development Program.
** 1983–1991 Director, Aussat Pty Ltd.
** 1986–1991 Member of the Board of Management, Asian Pacific Development Centre.
** 1989–1991 Member, National Advisory Committee on Skills Recognition.
* 1987–1995 Director, National Mutual Life Association of Australasia.
* 1993–1995 Professorial Fellow, Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research; Asia Business Centre and Director, The Full Employment Project, University of Melbourne.
* 1998–1999 Chair, Advisory Council, Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo.
* 2003–2006 Member, Australian Foreign Affairs Council.
* 1993–2013 Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Visiting Fellow, Department of Economics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.
* 2000–2013 Senior Fellow, Centre for Independent Studies.
In 1985 Hughes presented the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Boyer Lectures – 'Australia in a Developing World'. In 1983 she was appointed by the Australian Foreign Minister Bill Hayden as deputy chair of the Jackson Committee, which reported on foreign aid for the Australian government. She was also a member of the Australian Government's Fitzgerald Committee on Immigration: A Commitment to Australia. Hughes was a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Planning from 1987 to 1993. In 1980 Hughes appeared as a World Bank economist on a panel moderated by Robert McKenzie featuring Donald Rumsfeld, Jagdish Bhagwati, and Richard Deason (an IBEW union leader) as part of the Milton Friedman's PBS documentary Free to Choose.
Hughes' later research focused on economic development problems facing the Pacific Island nations and remote Indigenous Australian communities in Australia. Her last book, Lands of Shame, was about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 'Homelands' and reviewed demographic trends, law and order, land rights, joblessness and welfare, education, health, housing and governance, and assessed Commonwealth, State and Territory Indigenous policies. It was published by the Centre for Independent Studies.

### Honours

* 1985 Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
* 1985 Officer of the Order of Australia for "service to international relations, particularly in the field of economics".
* 1994 Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) La Trobe University.
* 2001 Centenary Medal, for "service to economic policy, particularly poverty alleviation and economic development".
* 2004 Distinguished Fellow, Economic Society of Australia.