Professor Alan Ahearne, Head of Economics at NUI Galway, has been appointed External Advisor to the Strategy, Practice and Review Department of the International Monetary Fund. In that role, he will advise IMF senior management on how the Fund could better support the efforts of countries at all levels of income to boost growth and create jobs in the period ahead.

Professor Ahearne is currently preparing a report, along with Sir Paul Collier (Oxford University) and Dr Paul Acquah (former Governor of the Bank of Ghana) on how the Fund’s advice on macro-critical structural issues could be enhanced. The report will identify macro-critical structural policy areas that are most relevant to the Funds’ member countries; determine the extent, focus and quality of Fund advice on such issues so far; and consider what changes should be brought to Fund surveillance in terms of coverage of structural issues.

According to Professor Ahearne: “This is an important juncture for the IMF and the global economy. The priority of governments around the world is to revive growth. But with the overhang of imbalances leaving little room for expansionary macroeconomic policies, the only remaining policy options are structural.”

Professor Ahearne joined the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway in 2005. He is a member of the Commission (Board) of the Central Bank of Ireland. Professor Ahearne served as Special Advisor to the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan from March 2009 to March 2011. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel, the Brussels-based think tank, and a Visiting Executive Lecturer in the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

Before joining NUI Galway, Alan Ahearne was Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, where he worked for seven years. He 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.

Professor Ahearne is Head of Economics at NUI Galway, where a flourishing and diverse academic environment integrates teaching and research, theory and empirical applications, in a policy-oriented and interdisciplinary way. There are approximately 1,800 undergraduate students of economics across several colleges, but mainly in the College of Business, Public Policy, and Law and in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies, and Social Sciences.

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