Brian AÕHearn

 

 

 

Pembroke College                                           phone: +44 01865 276 435

Oxford                                                             e-mail: brian.ahearn@pmb.ox.ac.uk

OX1 1DW                                                      web: users.ox.ac.uk/~pemb3023/

United Kingdom                                

 

 

Education

 

Ph.D., Economics; University of California, Berkeley CA, Dec. 1994.

 

B.A., summa cum laude, Economics and International Relations;

The American University, Washington DC, Aug. 1986.

Minors in Russian language and Soviet Studies.

 

 

Academic Employment

 

2008 – pres.        Fellow and Tutor in Economics, Pembroke College, University of Oxford.

 

2005 – 08:       Associate Professor (Õ07-Õ08 chairman); Dept. of Economics, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.

 

1999 – 2005:       Assistant Professor; Dept. of Economics, Franklin & Marshall

College.

 

1996 – 99:       Lecturer; Departments of Economics and Economic & Social

History (joint appointment), University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. (Equivalent to an assistant professor position.)

 

1994 – 96:       Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter;  Seminar fŸr

Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Ludwig-Maximilians UniversitŠt, Munich, Germany. (Equivalent to a post-doc position.)

 

1989 – 94:       Graduate Student Instructor, Graduate Student Researcher;

Dept. of Economics, Dept. of Public Policy, University of California - Berkeley.

 

Visiting Positions

 

       2006:        Visiting professor; Dept. of Economics and Institutions, University of Rome  ÒTor VergataÓ (Jan-July).

 


Publications and papers

 

Published Articles

 

ÒQuantifying Quantitative Literacy: Age Heaping and the History of Human Capital,Ó forthcoming, Journal of Economic History, vol. 69, no. 4 (2009).

With Jšrg Baten and Dorothee Crayen,

 

ÒHeight and the Normal Distribution: Evidence from Italian Military Data,Ó Demography, vol. 46, no. 1 (2009). With Franco Peracchi and Giovanni Vecchi.

 

ÒRussian Living Standards Under the Tsars: Anthropometric Evidence from the Volga,Ó Journal of Economic History, vol. 68, no. 3 (2008), pp. 900-929. With Boris Mironov.

 

ÒRemapping ItalyÕs Path to the 19th Century: Anthropometric SignpostsÓ, Journal of European Economic History, vol. 35, no. 2 (2006), pp. 349-392.

 

ÒFinance-led Divergence in the Regions of Italy,Ó Financial History Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (2005), pp. 7-41.

 

ÒA Restricted Maximum Likelihood Estimator for Historical Height Samples,Ó Economics and Human Biology, vol. 2, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 5-19.

 

ÒIl benessere dellÕItalia settentrionale nel secolo e mezzo precedente lÕunitˆ,Ó Rivista di Storia Economica, vol. XIX, no. 3 (December 2003), pp. 297-314.

 

ÒAnthropometric Evidence on Living Standards in Northern Italy, 1730-1860,Ó Journal of Economic History, vol. 63, no. 2 (June 2003), pp. 351-381.

 

ÒMore International Evidence on the Historical Properties of Business Cycles,Ó Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 47 (2001), pp 321-346, with U. Woitek.

 

ÒCould Southern Italians Cooperate? Banche Popolari in the MezzogiornoJournal of Economic History, vol. 60, no. 1 (March 2000). pp 67-93.

 

ÒInstitutions, Externalities, and Economic Growth in Southern Italy: Evidence from the Cotton Textile Industry, 1861-1914,Ó Economic History Review, vol. LI, no. 4 (November 1998). pp 734-762.

 

ÒThe Antebellum Puzzle Revisited: A New Look at the Physical Stature of Union Army Recruits during the Civil War,Ó in Studies on the Biological Standard of Living in Comparative Perspective, J. Komlos and J. Baten, eds., Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. pp. 250-267.

 


Book Reviews

 

Von der Autarkie zum Wirtschaftswunder: Wirtschaftspolitik und industrieller Wandel in Italien 1935-1963, by Rolf Petri. Journal of Economic History, v. 63, no. 1 (March 2003), pp. 261-62.

 

The Growth of the Italian Economy 1820-1960, by Jon Cohen and Giovanni Federico. EH.net, Sept. 2002.

 

Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism, by Franklin Adler. Journal of Economic History, v. 57 n. 4 (Dec. 1997), pp. 736-38.

 

Awards and External Grants

 

2005 Italian Fulbright Commission senior researcher grant no. 5318, awarded to support visiting the University of Rome ÒTor Vergata,Ó Department of Economics and Institutions, during the 2005-06 academic year.

 

2005 University of Rome ÒTor VergataÓ visiting scholar grant.

 

2003 National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar fellowship, American Academy of Rome.

 

1999 T.S. Ashton Prize for the best article submitted to the Economic History Review by a scholar under 35 during the biennium 1998-99.

 

Research Interests

 

Causes and distributional consequences of long run economic growth in Europe, particularly Italy: institutions, human capital and education, technology, business cycles, banking, cities and regions, anthropometrics, living standards and inequality.

 

Current projects:

 

Agricultural Credit and Southern ItalyÕs Contratto alla Voce: Efficiency or Exploitation?

 

The Roots of Regional Disparities in Human Capital: the Political Economy of Primary Education in Liberal Italy.

 

Teaching Experience

 

Intermediate Macroeconomics, Introduction to Macroeconomics, Economic Statistics, Econometrics, Introduction to Economic Principles, History of the International Economy, U.S. Economic History, European and Chinese Economic Development 900-1900, supervision of independent studies and honors theses.

(Franklin & Marshall)

 

History of the International Economy - MasterÕs in International Economics Program (Rome – Tor Vergata).

   

A New Institutional Economics Approach to Economic History, Quantitative Methods for MRes in Social Science Research / Postgraduate Research Training Certificate, Contributions to MPhil in Economic History, Non-honours Research Training, MSc in Development Economics dissertation supervision.

(Glasgow)

 

Survey of European Economic History, Seminar in Economic History, Contributions to General Economics for Business Students.

(Munich)

 

Other Professional Activities

 

Referee for Journal of Economic History, Economic History Review, Explorations in Economic History, European Review of Economic History, Labour, Journal of International Economics, Bulletin of Economic Research, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Financial History Review, Economics and Human Biology, and Oxford Economic Papers.

 

Languages

 

Italian, German, Russian, French

 

Personal

 

Born 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin, USA; US citizen.

Hometown: Washington DC area.

Family: married to Zlata Solovova, children Sean (19), Brendan (13), and Marie (7).