Welcome to my website!

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Finance at HEC Montreal and I am on the 2024-2025 academic job market. In my research, I use administrative data to answer questions about entrepreneurial and household finance.

Job market paper:

• Aiming Low: Necessity Entrepreneurs and the Choice to Incorporate with P. d’Astous and B. Scholnick

Abstract: Wage employees who are laid-off may turn to entrepreneurship to generate income. Conventional wisdom suggests that these necessity entrepreneurs perform poorly because they lack entrepreneurial skills and financing. In this paper we challenge this view, using data from matched employee-employer tax records that cover incorporated and unincorporated firms. We find that employees subject to mass layoffs, who “aim low” and start unincorporated companies, perform better than matched voluntary entrepreneurs starting similar firms. However, necessity entrepreneurs who start incorporated companies perform worse than their voluntary counterparts. This suggests that a lack of human and financial inputs has a smaller impact on achieving success in unincorporated firms.

Presentations: NFA 2024 (Poster session), SFA 2024, SCSE  2024

Work in progress

• Are income shocks predictable? An empirical test using bank data  (draft available upon request) 

Abstract: We analyze how individuals respond to a change in income using administrative account-level data  provided by a large  North American financial institution. The data includes records of the client's total monthly income deposits, and allows us to link month-end balances of all assets (savings and checking accounts) and liabilities (mortgages, credit lines and term loans) held by clients at this bank. Using an event-study methodology, we first test whether households in the sample can predict income changes. We then study how households use their financial products to adjust to a change in economic resources. We do not find evidence of anticipation of future income but rather an adjustment to the shock. We also document the responsiveness of mortgages, consumer term loans and credit lines to the change in economic resources.   

Presentations: HEC Montréal 2023

• How does firm tax compliance affect its labor force? with M. Boyer and P. d’Astous.

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the impact of mandated electronic sales recording on a firm’s labor force. We first show evidence of tax compliance in response to the increased sales monitoring. We then study the firm's response and show that they offset their increased reported revenues with additional expenditures and wages paid. Using employer-employee matched administrative tax records, we analyze the labor’s force response to this policy and find evidence of spillover to employees. The increased sales monitoring does not only increase the number of employees on the firms’ payroll, it also increases the likelihood that undocumented workers enter the formal economy.