I am a full professor of economics with The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and senior scholar at the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality. During the calendar year 2017, I was the Economist in Residence at Employment and Social Development Canada, the department of the Canadian federal government responsible for social policy.

My research focuses on labour markets and social policy, and is detailed in articles I have published on topics dealing with child poverty, access to university education, social and economic mobility, and unemployment. I am currently working on issues dealing with social mobility in Canada and other countries, and also with the meaning and measurement of equality of opportunity.

My research on inequality and equality of opportunity has contributed to and helped develop "The Great Gatsby Curve", showing that higher inequality is often associated with less social mobility, and has been cited by many of the major print and electronic media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Bloomberg Business Week, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post as well as the BBC, the CBC, TVO and The Globe and Mail.

Before joining the City University of New York, I taught principles of economics in a way relevant for public policy as a full professor with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. I continue to teach labour economics, social policy, and research methods. Before joining the University of Ottawa I was a member of the senior management at Statistics Canada, Canada’s national statistical agency, and have also been a visiting researcher with the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence Italy, the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the University of London, the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, with the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City, and was a visiting professor with the Department of Economics at Harvard University.