I am Professor of Economics, Affiliate Professor of Law at Indiana University. I am also Director of the Program on Governance of Natural Resources at the Ostrom Workshop. My areas of research are the economics of contracts and property rights, economic organization, law and economics, and environmental-natural resource economics. I have been a guest lecturer and visiting faculty member at many colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. I have served as John M. Olin Faculty Fellow in Law and Economics at the Yale Law School and as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Toronto. I was a Visiting Fellow at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Moncalieri (Torino), Italy.

I have authored numerous publications in professional journals, books and other outlets.  I am the co-author (with Douglas W. Allen) of The Nature of the Farm (MIT Press 2003) and a contributing co-editor (with Karen Bradshaw) of Wildfire Policy: Law and Economics Perspectives (Resources for the Future Press, 2012).

I hold memberships in the American Economic Association, the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists,  the American Law and Economics Association,  and the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics. I am also an academic affiliate in the Compass Lexecon Economic Consulting practice based in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to my academic career I was a smokejumper with the US Forest Service in McCall, Idaho.  I was born and raised on a farm in central North Dakota, have one brother and two adult children.  I maintain a residence in Montana where I spend a significant portion of my time.