Research
Working Papers
Changing the Perception of Time: Railroads, Access to Knowledge and Innovation in Nineteenth Century France (submitted) - Latest draft here
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
Presented at: 2nd International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation (ICSSI) (Kellogg Global Hub, Northwestern University), Interdisciplinary seminar in economic history (diesoi, Athens - 2023), 9th ZEW/MaCCI Conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting (ZEW, 2022), EHS Annual Conference (University of Cambridge, 2022), the Economic History Seminar at Paris School of Economics(2021), the F4T Seminar Series (Bocconi University, 2021), the Young Economist Symposium 2021 (sponsored by Columbia, NYU, UPenn, Princeton and Yale), the European Winter Meeting of the ES (2021), the AYEW Infrastructure Workshop (organized by the Monash Universityand the University of Warwick, 2021), the 15th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association (Arizona University, 2021), the HEC Paris Entrepreneurship Workshop (2021), the WU Economic & Social History Research Seminar (2021), 10th PhD-Student Workshopon Industrial and Public Economics (2022), the SEG Winter Workshop in the Geography of Innovation (2022), the IP and Innovation Virtual Seminar (2021), the 6th Summer School on Data & Algorithms for ST&I studies (organized by the Aristotle University and the KU Leuven, 2021), the DRUID 2021 (Copenhagen Business School), the PhD - Economics Virtual Seminar, the 11th ifo Dresden Workshop on Regional Economics (2021), the EPIP Conference (2021), the XXIII Applied Economics Meeting (Universitat de València, 2021), the Symposium of the Spanish Economic Association (2021), Virtual Meeting of the Urban Economics Association (2020), the 13th RGS Doctoral Conference in Economics on Regional Disparities and Economic Policy in Europe (Technische Universität of Dortmund, 2020), the 5th Geography of Innovation Conference (University of Stavanger, 2020), the 7th International PhD Workshop in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge (University of Turin, 2020), the Webinar Series of University of Ioannina, and the 4th Summer School in Economics (University of Ioannina, 2019).
Abstract: This paper exploits an episode of French history to study the relationship between the roll-out of railroads and the rise of the innovation activity. I take advantage of the exogenous variation in railway access arising from a straight-line time variant instrument to document that access to rail network increases the regional innovation activity, as it is proxied by the number of patents in the historical database of the National Institute of Industrial Property of France. I employ an access to knowledge index as an underlying mechanism behind the main results to show that, by reducing least-cost distances between cantons, railways intensified the influence exerted by neighboring concentrations of inventors, thereby triggering the spread of patenting. Next, I study the role of a global city, such as Paris, on the diffusion of new technologies. To do that, I have first to use a machine learning algorithm for text analysis and to assign a technology to the patents without a technological class. I report evidence that access to knowledge mechanism operates via inventors working in similar fields while access to a global city is associated with a higher probability of a city to innovate in a completely new technological sector. Finally, I introduce a back of the envelope exercise based on canals and roads to show that in the absence of railroads the invention rate of the French cantons would have been, on average, 24.14% lower.
Trains of Thought: High-Speed Rail and Innovation in China (submitted) - Latest draft here
(with Deyun Yin, Ernest Miguelez and Rosina Moreno)
Presented at: EPIP 2021 PhD workshop, 18th International Schumpeter Society (ISS) Conference, 9th summer school on “Knowledge Dynamics, Industrial Evolution, Economic Development”, 34th ERSA Summer School, Economic Geography Seminar (University of Utrecht, 2021), 10th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, 8th International PhD Workshop in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge and 5th Summer school on Data and Algorithms for ST&I studies
Abstract: This paper explores the effect of the High-Speed Rail (HSR) network expansion on local technological change of Chinese cities, during the period 2008-2016. Using ex- ogenous variation arising from the courier’s stations during the Ming dynasty as in- strument, we first find evidence that the opening of a HSR station increases cities’ in- novation 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 to through the HSR network, even after ac- counting for the local stock of capabilities.
Railways and Roadways to Trust (submitted)
(with Despina Gavresi and Anastasia Litina)
AQR-IREA Working Paper 2022/09
Presented at: 5th International Conference, 2019, on Applied Theory, Macro and Empirical Finance (University of Macedonia), 18th Conference on Research on Economic Theory and Econometrics in Tinos (University of Athens), ASREC Europe 2019 (Lund University)
Abstract: This paper explores the interplay between the extent of transportation infrastructure and various aspects of trust (interpersonal and political trust). We test our hypothesis by exploiting cross regional variation during the period 2002-2019. We focus on two measures of infrastructure, i.e., the length of railroads and railways in European regions. Interpersonal and political trust variables are derived from individual level data available in nine consecutive rounds of the European Social Survey. We document that individuals who live in regions with extended infrastructure network manifest higher trust both in people and political institutions. To mitigate endogeneity concerns, we extend our analysis to a sample of international and inter-regional immigrants. We further adopt an IV approach, where we use as an instrument the pre-existing Roman roads networks. The results from all three specifications are aligned to those of the benchmark analysis. We explore access to differential levels of trust as one of the underlying mechanisms behind our results. Relying on an expanding literature we hypothesize that the effect of infrastructure on trust operates directly via the degree of exposure to new people and ideas, as well as indirectly, via the effect of infrastructure on the structure of the economy.
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)
Publications
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,
doi/10.1016/j.techfore.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.