My teaching and research are in the areas of Development Economics, Resource Economics, Labor Economics, Economy-wide Modeling, and Applied Micro-econometrics. I teach the Ph.D. field course "Agriculture in Economic Development" emphasizing household, village, and economy-wide modeling. At the undergraduate level, I mostly teach microeconomic theory, development economics, econometrics, and agricultural labor.

The core of my work in microeconomic development has been the development of local economy-wide impact evaluation (LEWIE) methods and the application of household-farm modeling techniques to study a range of economic problems in less developed countries, including internal and international migration, the adoption of new agricultural technologies, preservation of biodiversity, regulation of fisheries, climate change, and economic impacts of refugees. My early work was among the first to empirically test propositions of the new economics of labor migration. Building on household-farm models, I have developed micro economy-wide (including village) models utilizing computable general equilibrium techniques. Applications of these models explore impacts of migration, policy changes, and market reforms on rural economies in a diversity of less developed country (LDC) settings.

My most recent work integrates models of heterogeneous households into local-economy models to evaluate the economic impacts of poverty programs, agricultural policies, technology change, refugees, regulation of common-property resources, and other questions. This approach complements conventional impact evaluations using randomization and involves extensive micro-economic surveys. My students have done field work in a number of countries, including Mexico, several countries in eastern and southern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia), most of Central America, Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, and Myanmar.

In addition to development economics research, I directed the UC-Mexico Initiative on the environment and serve on the UC-Mexico Initiative’s Leadership Council to advise President Napolitano. I was a Co-Editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and in 2016 I became Vice Chair of the ARE Department.