Helen Dolly Hughes (1 October 192815 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,Damien Murphy, "Champion of social justice", Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June 2013. Reprinted as Damien Murphy, 'Helen Hughes 1 October 1928 - 15 June 2013', in James J. Fox (ed.), 2021, Life Celebrations: ANU Obituaries 2000-2021, Action ACT: Australian National University, . 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.Australian Women's Register. Retrieved 17 June 2013
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.Free To Choose – Media
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.Lands of Shame [SP09] – $38.00 : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce
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.
Bibliography
Books 1964 The Australian Iron and Steel Industry, 1848–1962, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. 1964 with M. Gough, B. J. McFarlane and G. R. Palmer, Queensland: Industrial Enigma, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. 1969 with You Poh Seng, Foreign Investment and Industrialization in Singapore, Australian National University Press, Canberra, and Wisconsin University Press, Madison. 1973 (ed.) Prospects for Partnership: Industrialization and Trade Policies in the 1970s, IBRD, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 1980 (ed.) with J. Cody and D. Wall, Policies for Industrial Progress in Developing Countries, IBRD, Oxford University Press, New York. 1983 (ed.) with Burton Weisbrod, Human Resources, Employment and Development, Vol. 3, Macmillan, London. 1983 with R. Bautista, D. Lim, D. Morawetz and F. Thoumi, Capital Utilization in Manufacturing in Developing Countries: IBRD, Oxford University Press, New York. 1985 Australia in a Developing World, 1985 Boyer Lectures, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney. 1986 (ed.) Removing Constraints to Economic and Social Development, National Centre for Development Studies, Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU, Canberra. 1988 (ed). Achieving Industrialization in East Asia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.University of Melbourne /All Locations 1988 with Rodney Cole, The Fiji Economy, May 1987: problems and prospects, Pacific Policy Papers 4, National Centre for Development Studies, Canberra. 1992 (ed. Keberhasilan Industrialisasi di Asia Timur, Penerbit PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta. 1992 (ed.) The Dangers of Export Pessimism: developing country exports to industrial markets International Centre for Economic Growth. 1994 Achieving Full Employment, Full Employment Project, Melbourne University, November. 1996 with Graeme Dorrance, Divided Nation, Full Employment Project, Melbourne University, 1996 with Graeme Dorrance, Working Youth, Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney 2002 Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers: a global view, Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney 2007 Lands of Shame: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 'Homelands' in transition, Sydney, Centre for Independent Studies.
Book chapters and occasional papers 'Markets, efficiency and ethics', in Can We Afford to Be Efficient?, St James Ethics Centre, Sydney. 1970 with P. Brown, 'The market structure of Australian manufacturing and tertiary industry, 1914 to 1963–64' in C. Forster, Australian Development in the Twentieth Century, Allen and Unwin, Sydney. 1971 'The manufacturing sector', in Southeast Asia's Economy in the 1970s, Asian Development Bank, Longman, London. 1972 'Assessment of policies towards direct foreign investment' in P. Drysdale (ed.), Direct Foreign Investment in Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University Press, Canberra. 1972 with Hollis B. Chenery, 'The international division of labour, the case of industry' in Towards a New World Economy, Rotterdam University Press, Rotterdam; also published in El Trimestre Economico (in Spanish), Vol. 39(3), July–Sept, No. 155. 1973 'Trade and industrialization policies: the political economy of the second best' in K. Kojima (ed.), Structural Adjustment in Asian Pacific Trade, The Japan Economic Research Center, Tokyo. 1973 with Hollis B. Chenery, 'Trade and industrialization: some issues for the seventies', in H. Hughes (ed.), Prospects for Partnership: Industrialization and Trade Policies in the 1970s, IBRD, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 1974 'The scope for labour capital substitution in the developing economies of Southeast and East Asia' in L. White (ed.), Technology, Employment, and Development, Council for Asian Manpower Studies. 1976 'Technology transfer: the Australian experience' in Tamir Agmon and Charles P. Kindleberger, Multinationals from Small Countries, MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma. 1978 with John Shilling, 'Capital requirements for full employment and economic growth in developing countries' in Herbert Giersch (ed.), Capital Shortage and Unemployment in the World Economy, J. C. B. Mohr, Tübingen. 1980 'Achievements and objectives of industrialization', and with Goran Ohlin 'The International Environment' in J. Cody, H. Hughes and D. Wall (eds), Policies for Industrial Progress in Developing Countries, IBRD, Oxford University Press, New York. 1980 'North-South economic negotiations: a proposal for a more constructive agenda', in P. Oppenheimer (ed.), Issues in International Economics, Oriel Press, Stocksfield. 1980 'The prospects of ASEAN countries in industrialized country markets' in R. Garnaut (ed.), ASEAN in a Changing Pacific and World Economy, Australian National University Press, Canberra. 1981 'Changing relative energy prices, the balance of payments and growth in developing countries' in P. Auer and A. Manne (eds), Energy and the Developing Nations, Pergamon Press, New York. 1981 'Pessimism and a way out' in C. Saunders (ed.), The Political Economy of New and Old Industrial Countries, Butterworth & Co., London. 1981 with Ernest Lutz, 'The outlook for the 1980s with particular reference to trade' in H.G. Braun, H. Laumer, W. Liebfritz and H.C. Sherman (eds), Projections for the European Economy to 1990, IFO Institute for Economic Research, Munich. 1982 'Long run trends in the growth of developing countries' in R. M. Bautista and E. M. Pernia (eds), Essays in Development Economics in Honor of Harry T. Oshima, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Manila. 1982 with Boris Blazic-Metzner, 'Growth experience of small economies' in Bimal Jalan (ed.), Problems and Policies in Small Economies, Croom Helm, London. 1983 'Inter-developing-country trade and employment' in H. Hughes and Burton Weisbrod (eds), Human Resources, Employment and Development, Vol. 3, Macmillan, London. 1983 'The risks of lending to developing countries' in R. J. Herring (ed.), Managing International Risk, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1983 with Jean Waelbroeck, 'Foreign trade and structural adjustment – is there a threat of new protectionism' in H. G. Braun, H. Laumer, W. Leibfritz and H. C. Sherman (eds), The European Economy in the 1980s, Gower, Aldershot. 1984 'External debt problems of developing countries in Romeo M. Bautista and Seiji Naya (eds), Energy and Structural Change in the Asia Pacific Region, Philippine Institute for Development Studies/Asian Development Bank, Manila. 1984 with Anne O. Krueger, 'Effects of protection in developed countries on developing countries' exports of manufactures' in Robert E. Baldwin and Anne O. Krueger (eds), The Structure and Evolution of Recent United States Trade Policy, Chicago University Press, Chicago. 1985 'Australia and the world environment – the dynamics of international competition and wealth creation', in J. A. Scutt (ed.), Australia: Poor White Nation of the Pacific?, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.