He spent 1978 as a visiting fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He spent 1996-97 as a visiting fellow at the World Bank Group.

In 1991 he spent a year as a visiting fellow at Duke University.

He spent five years as a visiting professor (1994-95) and as a fellow (1995-99) at the University of Chicago.

Cobbing spent two months as a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford in 2002.

He also spent one semester at Yale as a fellow.

He then spent two years as a medical fellow at the University of Leipzig.

From there, he spent two years as a visiting fellow at Princeton University.

He then spent two years as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Now he spends most of his time as a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.