James R. Kearl (born May 27, 1947) is the Abraham O. Smoot Professor of Economics at Brigham Young University (BYU) and a principal figure in establishing the BYU Jerusalem Center. Kearl was born in Logan, Utah, and earned a bachelor's degree from Utah State University in Mathematics and Economics. He obtained a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed a post-doctoral program in Law at Harvard Law School.