She received her PhD in Economics from University of Maryland, College Park, USA, in 2006. Her primary research and teaching interests are in the fields of comparative institutional economics, economic history, and law and economics. Her research incorporates theoretical and empirical approaches to examine the divergent paths of development during post-socialist transition, the functioning and legacies of the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires, the determinants of efficiency of legal transplants, and the role of informal institutions on political participation.