Global current account imbalances: how to manage the risk for Europe

About the authors

• Alan Ahearne

  Alan Ahearne is a Professor and the Head of Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Ireland and has served as adviser to the IMF. He is Chairman of the ESRI and Department of Finance Joint Research Programme on the Macro-economy and Taxation.

  Alan served as economic adviser to Ireland’s former Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan from 2009 to 2011.

  Alan obtained his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (in Pittsburgh) in 1998 and subsequently joined the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, where he worked as a Senior Economist for seven years.

  His research at Bruegel has focused on macroeconomics, international finance and public policy, including macroeconomic adjustment in the euro area, reform of the euro area and governance of the EU, global current account imbalances, housing booms and busts, and the international experience with banking and financial crises.

• Jürgen von Hagen

  Jürgen von Hagen, a German citizen, was Bruegel'‘s first Non-resident Senior Fellow. His widely acclaimed work on European integration addresses public finance and political economy issues.

  Jürgen is the Director of the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn, a Research Fellow of the CEPR and a member of the Academic Advisory Council to the German Federal Minister of Economics and Labor.

  He has previously taught at Indiana University (1987-92) and the University of Mannheim (1992-96). His current interests include macroeconomics of European integration and the euro area and European public finance.