Frances Cairncross

Dame Frances Anne Cairncross, DBE (born 30 August 1944 in Otley, England) is a British economist, journalist and academic. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Senior Fellow at the School of Public Policy, UCLA. She chairs the Executive Committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Cairncross was born on 30 August 1944 to Mary Frances (née Glynn) and the economist, Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross. She attended Laurel Bank School in Glasgow and studied for an MA in History at St Anne's College, Oxford, graduating in 1965. She went on to study for an MA in Economics at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. She holds honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin, City University, and the universities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Loughborough and Kingston. She became a Fellow of St Anne's College in 1993.

Cairncross married journalist Hamish McRae in 1971. The couple have two daughters. Her uncle, John Cairncross was an intelligence officer, spy and double agent.

From 1973-1984, Cairncross was on the staff of The Guardian newspaper. She was its as economics correspondent from 1973-1981 and women's page editor from 1981-1984. Previous to her time at The Guardian she worked at The Times (1967-69) The Banker (1969) and The Observer (1970-73). She was on the staff of The Economist from 1984-2004 working in roles covering the environment, media and public policy. From 1999-2004 she was management editor.

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