He is also the former executive director of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC), the current Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Society (IRES) at Chapman University, and a research associate at Chapman's Economic Science Institute (ESI). He is an economic historian whose research focuses on the role that the interaction between religious and political institutions have played in the long run economic development of the Middle East and Western Europe. He work on this topic has been published in numerous journals, and he is currently working on a book entitled "God, Power, and Printing". He received his Ph.D. in economics in 2007 from Stanford University, working under Avner Greif, Timur Kuran, and Ran Abramitzky.