AN ECONOMIST and Oxford don who advised Margaret Thatcher has died aged 88.

Sir Douglas Hague was a distinguished economist and academic who came to Oxford in 1981, having played a key role in Manchester in setting up one of Britain’s first business postgraduate programmes.

At Green Templeton College, where he was a fellow, he set up and ran the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme for more than 10 years.

In the run-up to the 1979 General Election he advised future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and continued as a consultant in her policy unit until 1983.

From 1983 to 1987, he also chaired the Economic and Social Research Council and served on the council of the Institute of Directors from 1993 to 1996.

Both he and Mrs Thatcher had been members of the Wesley Memorial Church in Oxford and he remained friends with her and husband Denis for many years.

Sir Douglas was appointed CBE in 1978 and knighted in 1982.

He was born Douglas Chalmers Hague on October 20, 1926 in Leeds, and attended Moseley Grammar School and King Edward VI High School, in Birmingham.

At Birmingham University he then studied economics and took a job in the commerce department in 1946, after gaining his degree.

A lecturing job at University College London followed and he also worked with Alfred Stonier.

The two jointly lectured on economic theory, and wrote the influential A Textbook of Economic Theory, published in 1953, together.

Sir Douglas wrote a report arguing that there should be a British business school and in 1963 Manchester University recruited him to create one there.

He left Manchester in 1981 to join the Oxford Centre for Management Studies, which later became Templeton College.

There he set up the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme, still a world-leading course, and directed it from 1982 until 1997.

In retirement, Sir Douglas continued to write on the subject of business and universities and co-authored two volumes of case studies on spin-out firms in partnership with the Saïd Business School.

He died peacefully on February 1.

A funeral service was held at Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford, on February 16. A celebration of Sir Douglas’ life will be held in the spring. Sir Douglas is survived by two daughters. His first marriage was to Brenda Fereday in 1947, but it was dissolved. He married again in 1986, to Janet Leach.