I study the politics of public spending and foreign aid, and how elections shape patterns of development and inequality, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. My research also looks at how governments use illicit means like fraud and violence to win elections. I specialize in causal inference, field experiments and spatial analysis.
My research focuses on the politics of international development. I am particularly interested in explaining how international organizations and politicians make decisions about development spending; and have completed several field experiments exporing this subject. In other strands of research, I study the economic effects of transnational crime and the reasons why politicians sometimes choose to use electoral fraud and violence to win elections.