He has a MBA degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a PhD in Economics from Iowa State University. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas he was a faculty member at Clarkson University in upstate New York. His fields of interest lie in the areas of public, environmental, and defense economics and microeconomic theory. He has published in such journals as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Public Economic Theory, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.