Prior to his appointment as vice-chancellor, he was a senior fellow and director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

In July 2017, the University of Sussex, UK, awarded Ernest Aryeetey an honorary degree for significant contribution to the study of African economies and to higher education transformation in Africa.

Ernest Aryeetey has published 3 books, 6 edited volumes, 32 journal articles and over 100 conference, working and discussion papers.

Among his publications are Financial Integration and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Routledge 1998) and Economic Reforms in Ghana: the Miracle and the Mirage (James Currey 2000).

His publication with Ravi Kanbur on “The Economy of Ghana Sixty Years after Independence” and published by Oxford University Press in 2017 is one of his best known recent works.

Until April 2019, he was the board chair of Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ernest Aryeetey delivered the 2018 WIDER Annual Development Lectures in Helsinki, where he spoke on “The Political Economy of Structural Transformation: Has Democracy Failed African Economies?” Ernest Aryeetey was the Priest's Warden of Christ Church at University of Ghana (2003–2009).