Before moving to China in 2002 Pettis spent fifteen years on Wall Street running fixed-income trading and capital markets desks at JP Morgan, First Boston and Bear Stearns, where he advised Latin American, Asian and Eastern European governments on debt and balance sheet strategies.
He has published over 200 articles in various leading periodicals along with six books, the most recent of which, Trade War is Class War (Yale University Press 2020), was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize. He received an MBA in Finance and an MIA in Development Economics from Columbia University.