Previously, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Global Development. His research focuses broadly on political and economic development, with emphasis on topics related to political behavior, crime, and conflict. He has two main lines of ongoing research. One examines how violence affects behavioral outcomes and the development of institutions. His second line of research is on the political economy of organized crime, with a regional focus on the U.S.-Mexico drug trade. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of the European Economic Association.