My research focuses on two interrelated topics: first, the development of political, legal, and economic institutions in pre-modern, citizen-centered governments; and second, the lessons that the emergence, configuration, and breakdown of such institutions hold for the theory and practice of institution building in the modern world.
I am the author of A Moral Political Economy: Present, Past and Future (Cambridge University Press 2021) and of Creating a Constitution: Law, Democracy and Growth in Ancient Athens (Princeton University Press 2019). My work has appeared in leading political science journals, including the Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and Perspectives on Politics, as well as popular outlets such as WIRED, The Economist and La Repubblica.