Research

Publications

Trains of Thought: High-Speed Rail and Innovation in China

(with Deyun Yin, Ernest Miguelez and Rosina Moreno)

Industry and Innovation, 2025, 1–17

Abstract: This paper explores the effect of the High-Speed Rail (HSR) on local technological change of Chinese cities. Using exogenous variation arising from the courier’s stations during the Ming dynasty as instrument, as well as a large number of controls and fixed effects, we find evidence that the opening of an HSR station increases cities’ innovation activity. The paper also looks at the effect of the HSR on the technological trajectories of cities. Computing least-cost paths between city-pairs, we obtain that the probability of a city to branch into a new technological field is related to the current portfolio of the cities to which it connects through the HSR network.

Changing the perception of time: railroads, inventor access and innovation in 19th-century France

Regional Studies, 2025, 59(1) 

Media coverage: The Long Run,  EL ESPAÑOL,  Selected for Econ Job Market Vlog (Monash Business School) 2021

Awards: Best Paper Award on R&D and Innovation at 10th PhD-Student Workshop on Industrial and Public Economics 2022,  Accesit Young Researcher ALdE Award at XXIII Applied Economics Meeting 2021,  Fundación Ramón Areces and the Spanish Economic Association fellowship award 2021 

Abstract: I exploit an episode in French history to study the relationship between the rollout of railroads and the rise of the innovation activity in French regions, proxied by the number of patents registered in the French historical database. I employ an inventor access mechanism to show that, by reducing the cost of moving between regions, railways intensified the influence exerted by neighbouring concentrations of inventors, thereby triggering the spread of knowledge and subsequent patenting. I find that inventor access significantly boosts patenting activity, particularly in agriculture and in medium-sized cities. Finally, I study the role of a global city, such as Paris, on the diffusion of new technologies and report evidence that it uniquely enables smaller cantons to branch into new fields of innovation. By contrast, other major cities do not exert a comparable influence. These findings shed new light on how infrastructure development shapes the spatial dynamics of innovation. 

Motorways and railroads to trust

(with Despina Gavresi and Anastasia Litina)

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Volume 234, June 2025, 106972

Abstract: This paper examines how transportation infrastructure, specifically motorway and railroad length, impacts interpersonal and political trust. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we observe higher trust levels in individuals from regions with more extensive infrastructure. Our analysis encompasses three layers: a cross-regional analysis, an international immigrant analysis where immigrants are linked to their origin country infrastructure, and an inter-regional immigrant analysis where immigrants are linked to their origin region’s infrastructure, respectively. Consistent results across specifications suggest infrastructure enhances trust by promoting mobility and exposure to new people and ideas, as well as by elevating political trust as the government is perceived as more reliable and effective. Further analysis in a panel of Nuts 1 regions focuses on the mechanics of mobility. We investigate how trust in a region correlates with the road and rail travel time between regions as well as with the cost-effectiveness of its connections. The findings indicate that increased and more affordable mobility leads to higher trust, further supporting our hypothesis.

Do Product Market Reforms Raise Innovation? Evidence from Micro-data Across 12 Countries 

(with Anastasia Litina and Christos Makridis)

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 169, August 2021, 120841, 

Abstract: How does policy affect innovation and the digital economy? We revisit a classical question as to how standard product market regulation affects innovation and we develop a novel framework for thinking about digital regulation. Using new establishment-level micro-data across 12 countries between 1998 and 2012, this paper first estimates the effect of competition policy on innovation. We find that a standard deviation rise in product market regulation is associated with a 1.029% decline in innovation activities. These declines are a result of product market regulation on the incentives to invest in in-house R&D and make the appropriate capital acquisitions, as well as of the effects of regulation on the cost of innovation activities. We then theorize on the effect of digital regulation on innovation and we empirically test our hypothesis using a sub-sample of the years in our analysis. We find that “protective regulation” confers a positive effect on innovation, while “restrictive regulation” confers a negative effect on innovation. Thus, contrary to our findings about standard PMR, the digital regulation results are more sensitive to the content of regulation. We attribute this ambiguity to the fact that digital markers require an enhanced level of trust to be operative.

Work in Progress

A Light Bulb Goes On: Religiosity and the Adoption of Electrical Technologies in 19th century France

(with Sergio Petralia, Ernest Miguelez and Rosina Moreno)

Updated draft coming soon!

Innovation and Income Inequality: World Evidence

(with Nikos Benos)

MPRA Working Paper, 2019 

Abstract: In this paper we explore the effect of innovation on income inequality using annual country panel data for 29 countries. We demonstrate that innovation activities reduce personal income inequality by matching patents from the European Patent Office with their inventors. Our findings are supported by instrumental variable estimations to tackle endogeneity. The results are also robust with respect to various inequality measures, alternative quality indexes of innovation, truncation bias, the use of patent applications together with granted patents and different ways to split or allocate patents.

Media coverage: ITIF (information technology & innovation foundation)