Earned his B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1977. From 1982 to 1983, he spent a year working at the Reagan White House as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers. Taught at Yale Universty, MIT, UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics and Stanford University before joining the faculty of Princeton University in 2000.