He graduated from Princeton University in 1963 and received a Doctor of Philosophy in 1969 from Yale, and was deputy director of development and trade research at the office of the assistant secretary for international affairs at the United States Department of the Treasury from 1971–1973.
He worked at the Brookings Institution from 1973–1981. He has been a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute since 1981, with a joint appointment at the Center for Global Development. He was deputy managing director and chief economist of the Institute of International Finance from 1996–2001.
He has written, edited and published a large number of papers.
His research topics include capital flows, Debt Relief, the Environment, Finance, International Financial Institutions, Trade and Development, and the economics of global warming and Climate change and agriculture.
