Dr. Alan Ahearne

           J. E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics

Dr. Alan Ahearne is on leave of absence from March 2009 as Special Advisor to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.

Dr. Alan Ahearne lectures in economics at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He also holds an appointment as a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel, the influential Brussels-based economics think tank, and is a Research Associate at the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He is an invited member of the Financial Times Economists' Forum, the EMU Monitor group of monetary experts, and the RGE Europe EconoMonitor. He is Associate Editor of  The Economic and Social Review.

Dr. Ahearne joined NUI Galway in 2005. Prior to coming to Galway, he was a Senior Economist in the International Finance Division of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC. During his seven years at the Federal Reserve Board, his duties included preparing notes for and presenting briefings to Chairman Alan Greenspan and other Board members. He was also the principal economist at the Board covering the Japanese and Chinese economies.  Dr. Ahearne has taught economics at Carnegie Mellon University, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the University of Limerick.  He began his professional career with Coopers & Lybrand and also worked for Bank of Ireland Group Treasury.

Dr. Ahearne's areas of expertise are macroeconomics and international finance. His research includes studies on property markets in Ireland and other industrial countries; global current account imbalances and exchange rates; services sector growth; and the economic performance of the euro area. In addition to being published in top academic journals, his research has featured in The Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Irish Times, and Sunday Business Post. He also writes a weekly column on property for the Sunday Independent.  He is a regular contributor on economic issues on the BBC, CNBC, RTE, Newstalk, and Today FM.

Dr. Ahearne received a B.B.S. from the University of Limerick in 1989, an M.Econ.Sc. from University College Dublin in 1991 and an M.Sc. (1995) and a Ph.D. (1998), both in economics, from Carnegie Mellon University.  At Carnegie Mellon, he received several awards and honours, including the William Larimer Mellon Doctoral Fellowship (1993-1996) and the Excellence in Teaching Award (1997).  His Ph.D. dissertation advisor at Carnegie Mellon was Finn Kydland, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2004. 

" The economist who told you so" is an Irish Times profile of Alan Ahearne that was published in November 2008.

An earlier profile and interview, " Ex-Fed and the unexpected " appeared in Business & Finance in January 2006 (630 KB, PDF). He was also profiled in the Irish Examiner (12 May 2006).

Dr. Ahearne can be contacted by email at alan.ahearnenuigalway.ie .