I’m a political economist based at the University of Geneva, where I’m an Associate Researcher in the Department of Political Science and International Relations. My current project, with Prof. Sandra Lavenex, looks at how non-EU countries cooperate with European financial regulators.
I came to Geneva from the University of Warwick, where I held a Swiss National Science Foundation fellowship and, before that, a British Academy Visiting Fellowship. Earlier postdoctoral positions were at King’s College London and the University of St.Gallen, where I completed my PhD in 2022. Before moving into academia I worked as a research economist at the Irish Revenue Commissioners.
My first book, The Golden Cage of Tax Avoidance: How Ireland Harnesses Corporate Power, is under contract with Edinburgh University Press. It argues that Ireland, working with the major professional service firms, actively manufactures the tax avoidance tools that multinationals rely on. This cuts against the standard “race to the bottom” account of tax competition. The TNCs locked into Ireland’s bespoke tax architecture have nowhere comparable to go, which hands the Irish state structural leverage the race-to-the-bottom story can’t see.
I’ve published in journals including Competition & Change and Politics.
Current work in progress includes:
- Small-state tax policy autonomy, looking at Ireland under U.S. pressure
- Banking advisors and monetary policy convergence across the boom-bust cycle
- Property developers and momentum trading, with Engelbert Stockhammer (Kings College London)
- Transgovernmental networks and democratic governance, with Tina Freyburg (St.Gallen) and Sandra Lavenex (Geneva).
- Board composition and governance quality in transnational financial networks, with Tina Freyburg
Contact details:
Email: ciaran.oflynn@unisg.ch
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Dr. Ciarán O'Flynn 