I am a Senior Lecturer of Political Science at NYU Abu Dhabi.
My research is in comparative and historical political economy, with a substantive focus on American political development. I am especially interested in understanding how state and local political institutions emerged and persisted over time, and how these institutions shaped the development of fiscal capacity, the incidence of taxation, and patterns of public spending. My work has also examined how political institutions shape patterns of political violence throughout American history. I primarily study these questions using large datasets constructed from previously underutilized historical government documents and large-scale administrative records.