He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2001. His past research includes work on bequest motives, behavioral responses to income and estate taxation and evolution of wealth and income inequality. His research has appeared in leading economics journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is on editorial boards of the Journal of Public Economics and the American Economic Journal: Public Policy.