I am a professor in the political science department at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. My research and teaching interests are at the intersection of political science, public economics, and geography.
For over 20 years I have been working on issues related to federalism and various forms of fiscal and political decentralization around the world. In addition to academic research, I have been engaged in policy debates in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Africa in collaboration with the IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank, and OECD. I recently collaborated with USAID on an edited volume on fiscal decentralization, and on some experiments related to local accountability in Africa.
Much of my recent research focuses on political and economic geography. I published a book on the topic in 2019, and I have written a series of papers on the ways in which electoral districts, when superimposed on patterns of residential geography, can shape representation and public policy. I have also been involved in policy debates about redistricting, and I have written amicus briefs for the Supreme Court of the United States, and testified in a number of trials in federal and state court related to redistricting and voting rights.
I am the founder and director of the Stanford Spatial Social Science Lab-- a center for research and teaching focusing on geospatial analysis in the social sciences.
