In 1994, he was awarded a Ph.D. from Michigan State University with a thesis entitled “Three Essays on the Labor Market Characteristics of Immigrants”.
In 1997 he co-authored a book on environmental economics, The Fiscal System and the Polluter Pays Principle: A Case-study of Ireland.
Between 2001 and 2003, Alan was seconded to the Department of Finance where he worked on the long-term fiscal implications of population ageing.
Between 2011 and 2013, he was seconded to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin where he worked as Project Director.
He was co-editor of the IZA Journal of European Labor Studies from 2012 to 2015 and was the founding Editor of the Policy Section of the Economic and Social Review from 2009 to 2011.