Dragutinović graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics where she also received an MSc and a PhD and still lectures.

From 1 September 2004 she was the vice governor of the National Bank of Serbia to Radovan Jelašić, in charge of coordination and management of research and statistics, monetary policy and payment systems.

Her main areas of research are macroeconomics, econometric modelling, financial programming, long-term economic growth theory, convergence analysis, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy, poverty and social policy.

During the reconstruction of Cvetković's Government on 14 March 2011, she was dismissed from the position of Minister for Finance.

She is the author of textbooks, ten monographs and over 50 studies, articles and papers.