He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sharman's research is currently focused on the regulation of global finance, especially as it relates to money laundering, tax and offshore financial centres. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank FIRST Initiative, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Financial Action Task Force and the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering. His latest book, Havens in a storm: the struggle for global tax regulation, was published by Cornell University Press in 2006.