I am an assistant professor in the Business and Public Policy Group at University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow. I am affiliated with BREAD, CEGA, CEPR, EGAP, IFS, JPAL, NBER, and STICERD. My research interests are at the intersection of development economics, public finance, and political economy. My primary research agenda explores the role of state capacity in development with a focus on taxation. A second agenda explores the relationship between culture and institutions. A third agenda examines the political economy of institutional change. My field work is based in the D.R. Congo, where I run a research organization called ODEKA, as well as Haiti, Myanmar, Nepal, and Zambia. I completed a PhD in Political Economy and Government at Harvard in 2018.