I grew up in Israel. After completing a B.A. at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I worked as a tour guide in China and India. In 1998 I moved to study International Economics at the University of California in Santa Cruz (PhD, 2003). My dissertation, on financial crises, was written under the supervision of Prof. Michael Hutchison. 

I then worked at the University of Hawai'i in Manoa. After a decade there, I moved to Aotearoa - New Zealand, and have since been the Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.

In 2017, I founded, with Shunsuke Managi, a new journal: Economics of Disasters and Climate Change.