I received my Bachelors in Economics and History from the University of Memphis in 1997. This was followed with a Masters in Economics from the University of Memphis in 1998 and a Masters in Economic History from the London School of Economics in 1999. My terminal degree, a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Davis, was awarded in 2004. My research primarily spans the areas of economic & financial history and international trade & finance.
I am currently the J.Y. Pillay Professor of Social Sciences at Yale-NUS College and Professor of Economics at the National University of Singapore, having served for the former as Head of Studies for Economics from 2021 to 2022 and Director for the Division of Social Sciences from 2022. In 2019, I was appointed as a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, UK). From 2008 to 2023, I was also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, USA).
I have been invited to give academic and non-academic presentations on over 100 occasions in 24 countries and have been an invited visitor at 14 institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. Over the course of my career, my research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom, the French National Research Agency, the National Science Foundation of the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Finally, I have served as a consultant for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, Chang Family Holdings, the Richard Chandler Corporation, Tsao Family Holdings, and the World Bank while my work has been cited by outlets such as The Economist, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post among others.
