He has obtained a Masters degree in Policy Economics from the University of Illinois in 1997 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2002. He has received grants from the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Fund at Western in 2003 and 2004, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in 2005, 2008, and 2015, and from the Office of Superintendent for Bankruptcy in 2011. He has held visiting research positions at Arizona State University, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He was a Scholar with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research from 2005 to 2009.