My research and teaching interests focus on political economy and international economics. Some of my work has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Economic Journal – Macroeconomics, Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.
Prior to joining the faculty at Princeton, I was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. I spent the 2016-2017 academic year as the William C. Bark National Fellow at the Hoover Institute. Before transitioning to academia, I spent a few years as an international and macroeconomist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Selected Publications
Articles:
“Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation” (with Laura Alfaro), Capital Markets Law Journal (special edition on sovereign debt), 12(2): 141-163, April 2017
“Remittances and Incumbency: Theory and Evidence”, Economics and Politics, 29(1): 22-47, March 2017
“Does foreign aid harm political rights?: Evidence from U.S. aid”, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 11(2): 118-217, July 2016
“Aid and the Rise and Fall of Conflict in the Muslim World” (with Eric Werker), Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 10(2): 155-186, June 2015
“The Paradox of Export Growth in Areas of Weak Governance: The Case of the Ready Made Garment Sector in Bangladesh” (with Anne Greenleaf and Audrey Sacks), World Development, 56: 258-271, April 2014
“Voting for the President: The Supreme Court during War” (with William Howell), Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 30(1): 39-71, March 2014
“Remittances deteriorate governance”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 95(4): 1166-1182, October 2013
“The Perils of Unearned Foreign Income: Aid, remittances, and government survival”, American Political Science Review, 106(1): 146-165, February 2012
“Empires and Lawsuits: On the enforcement of sovereign debt in Latin America” (with Laura Alfaro and Noel Maurer), Law and Contemporary Problems, 73(4): 39-46, Fall 2010
“How is Aid Spent?: Evidence from a Natural Experiment” (with Eric Werker and Charles Cohen), American Economic Journal – Macroeconomics, 1(2): 225-244, July 2009 Reprinted in Geopolitics of Foreign Aid, ed. Helen Milner and Dustin Tingley. Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2013
“What do non-governmental organizations do?” (with Eric Werker), Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(2): 73-92, Spring 2008
Book chapters:
“The Political Economy of Unearned Foreign Income: An application to non-oil producing Muslim states”, Palgrave Dictionary on Middle East Economics, forthcoming
“The History and Future of International Trade” (with Christine McDaniel), Economic Report of the President, 2006
“The U.S. Capital Account Surplus” (with William Block), Economic Report of the President, 2006
Selected Honors and Awards
2016 – 2017 William C. Bark National Fellowship, Hoover Institute (Stanford University)
2011 – 2014 Nuffield Prize Fellowship, Oxford University
2010 Niehaus Fellowship, Princeton University
2010 Hewlett Fellowship, Stanford University (declined)