Ireland’s Economic Transformation
Speaker: Professor Alan Barrett, CEO of Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin
Date: 4 October 2023 (Wednesday)
Time: 10:00 - 11:00 am
Venue: (hybrid) ASEM Room, Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Online: Via Microsoft Teams
Ireland has evolved dramatically in the last few decades, moving from a small, agriculture-based economy with high emigration, to a modern and open economy, with significant foreign direct investment and population inflows. Professor Barrett will set out the factors which underpinned this transformation covering topics such as industrial policy, education policy and membership of the European Union. He will also draw out lessons for economies at different stages of development.
Professor Alan Barrett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Economic and Social Research Institute. As CEO, his primary responsibility is to ensure that the mission of the Institute is fulfilled, that is, “to produce economic and social research on key issues facing Ireland and to communicate research results to inform public policymaking and civil society”. More generally, he is responsible for strategic leadership and management, including funding, governance and human resources.
Professor Barrett received his Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University in 1994 and joined the ESRI that year. He was seconded to the Department of Finance from 2001 to 2003 and to Trinity College Dublin from 2011 to 2013. Most of his research has been in the areas of labour economics, population economics and macroeconomics. His academic work has been published in journals such as Labour Economics, the Journal of Population Economics, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, the International Migration Review, Population Research and Policy Review, the Economic and Social Review, the National Institute Economic Review and Economics Letters.
Early in his career at the ESRI, he undertook work on environmental economics. In 1997, he co-authored a book on environmental policy (The Fiscal System and the Polluter Pays Principle: A Case-study of Ireland, Ashgate: UK). Between 2005 and 2010, he was a lead author of the ESRI’s Quarterly Economic Commentary.
He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Research Fellow with the Institute for Labour Economics (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin. He was a member of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council from 2011 to 2015 and a member (ex officio) of the Climate Change Advisory Council from 2015 to 2021. He has chaired each National Economic Dialogue from 2015 to 2021. Since March 2021, he has been a member of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council.
He is a frequent contributor to radio and television discussions on economic matters and has been quoted in newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist.
Distinguished Professor Dato’ Dr. Rajah Rasiah obtained his doctorate in economics from Cambridge University in 1992 and served as a fellow at Harvard University in 2014. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at UNIMAS (1999-2000), and at Faculty of Economics and Administration in the University of Malaya in 2009–2010 and 2013–2014. He also holds professorial fellow positions at the Centre for Rising Powers in Cambridge University, UNU-MERIT, and Technology Management and Development Centre in Oxford University. Among his prestigious awards include the Cambridge Journal of Economics Award by the Cambridge Political Economy Trust in 1992, the Robert McNamara Award by the World Bank in 1993, the Celso Furtado Prize for advancing the frontiers of Social Science thought (Economics) from the World Academy of Sciences in 2014, and the Merdeka Prize under the category of scholastic achievement in 2018 from the Merdeka Prize Committee. He was awarded the Distinguished Professor of Economics Position by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia in 2017.
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Last Update: 20/09/2023
