Professor Tahoun was named one of the Top 40 Professors under 40. He was previously a Full Professor at London Business School, which he joined in 2012 and where he received tenure in 2019. He has also been a research scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Wharton School, a faculty member at the London School of Economics, a research fellow at the University of Valencia, and, earlier in his career, a banker at HSBC.
His research sits at the intersection of accounting, finance, political economy, and the economics of science and technology, with a distinctive emphasis on large-scale data and computational methods.
A central strand of his work is “Text as Data”: developing methods that transform large volumes of unstructured text into measurable economic signals. He uses these methods to identify and predict systemic shocks—from political events and geopolitical uncertainty to global pandemics—and to construct firm-level measures of exposure to cyber-security risk, inflation, climate change, and other sources of uncertainty.
Together with his academic co-authors, this work led to the development of NL Analytics, a proprietary tool that applies computational linguistics to measure risk and economic exposure at scale. Used by policymakers, central bankers, and researchers, NL Analytics enables users to monitor country risk and sentiment, trace the transmission of risk during crises, and assess how firms respond to economic shocks, policies, and regulation.
Another major strand of Tahoun’s research examines the market for political favours and the interaction between political power and corporate interests. His work explores politicians’ financial interests, government intervention in the economy, corporate–political connections, and the economic consequences of political upheaval. More broadly, he investigates how political institutions and uncertainty shape firm behaviour and financial markets.
His more recent research develops new ways to measure scientific and technological change at scale, examining how new ideas and technologies emerge and diffuse across firms and economies.
Tahoun has published in leading economics, finance, and accounting journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, and Journal of Accounting and Economics. His research has also been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.
He served two terms as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Accounting Research. His honours include ten consecutive grants from the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the Journal of Accounting Research Referee of the Year Award.
Tahoun’s doctoral training spanned seven institutions across five countries, including Wharton and Chicago Booth in the United States, the London School of Economics and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, Tilburg University in the Netherlands, the University of Valencia in Spain, and Cairo University in Egypt.