He studied economics at the University of Bonn and the University of California at Berkeley and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University. Prior to joining MIT, he spent a year as a postdoc at the Institute on Behavior and Inequality in Bonn, Germany. His research focuses on topics at the intersection of labor and public economics as well econometrics and combines experimental and quasi-experimental methods with large, administrative datasets to shed light on the functioning of labor markets and the origins and consequences of inequality.