Research

Working papers and works in progress

1. Innovation and Technology Adoption under Patent Box Taxation and Patent Protection, With Pavel Ševčík, Working paper (2026).
Abstract: This paper develops and estimates an endogenous growth model to evaluate the welfare implications of Patent Box (PB) taxation and patent protection. Firms are heterogeneous in human capital and invest in experimental R&D, generating radical innovations, and applied R&D, producing incremental productivity gains. Technologies depreciate and are continuously traded through patent licensing, akin to vintage capital. We uncover a fundamental exploration-exploitation trade-off: the PB regime fosters frontier innovation by raising the after-tax return to patented technologies and stimulating experimental R&D, while simultaneously reducing applied R&D. In contrast, longer patent protection increases the lifetime value of innovation, strengthens frontier innovation, delays technology diffusion, and reshapes market structure. Estimating the model on the 2019 wave of the Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy, we find that both policies generate substantial welfare gains despite operating through distinct transmission mechanisms.

2. Experimental and applied R&D investment under liquidity constraints,  With Pavel Ševčík, Job Market Paper (2026).
Abstract: When R&D support is unconditional on the type of research, does it matter whether it arrives as a subsidy or a refundable tax credit? We show it does. A subsidy lowers R&D's upfront cost, whereas a tax credit is paid only after expenses are incurred and, once received, becomes divertible cash the lender must cover. We embed limited-enforcement financial frictions in an endogenous growth model with heterogeneous firms conducting applied research, which raises current profit, and experimental research, which raises future productivity and, unlike applied research, spills over to other firms. Because the tax credit tightens the financing constraint, firms cut applied research, whose near-term profits are divertible, and reallocate toward experimental research, whose distant return they cannot pledge. Calibrated to Canadian data, this reallocation is concentrated among financially constrained innovating firms and, once aggregated across the firm distribution, the tax credit raises the mass of innovating firms by 0.01 percentage point and welfare by 0.02 consumption-equivalent points over an equal-cost subsidy. Firm-level evidence is consistent with this mechanism.

3. The Compositional Effect of R&D Incentives: Evidence from Canadian firms, With Pavel Ševčík, Work in progress (2026).
Abstract: Does the design of R&D policy influence the direction of innovation? Using firm-level data from the 2017 and 2019 waves of the Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy (SIBS), we examine how different policy instruments shape the composition of research portfolios between experimental and applied activities. To address selection into R&D investment, we employ a Heckman selection model with a robust exclusion restriction. We allow the compositional response to vary across two dimensions of firm heterogeneity that are central to the allocation of research effort: financial constraints and innovation status. We find that tax credits induce a reallocation toward experimental R&D, while training and hiring programs redirect research effort toward applied development. Both reallocation effects are more pronounced among non-innovating firms, and become more precisely identified once financial constraints are accounted for. Direct subsidies exhibit a balanced effect across both types of R&D, leaving the composition of research portfolios largely undistorted. These findings demonstrate that R&D incentives are not neutral with respect to the direction of innovation: instrument design shapes the type of knowledge firms produce, with fundamental implications for long-run productivity growth. 

4. Social Welfare Growth Accounting: The Power of Population Growth, Work in progress (2026).
Abstract: We analyze the increase in social welfare - measured in consumption equivalent (CE) units - by separating the contributions of population growth, technology growth and per capita consumption growth in the 10 Canadian provinces. Our social welfare growth accounting reveals that population growth is adjusted by a value-of-life factor, v, that empirically averages around 6.46 across provinces and over time.  On average, across provinces, CE welfare growth amounts to 9.67%, with population and technology growth contributing respectively 4.91% and 3.04% while consumption growth contributes 1.72%. We conduct several robustness analysis including considering within-province heterogeneity and consumption inequality. Because the population growth is scaled up by a value-of-life factor, one percent increase in population growth generate v percent increase in CE welfare growth. This basically makes population growth the predominant factor to CE welfare growth. Finally, we examined the elements that impact the value-of-life factor and we found that it increases with personal income and inflows migration while decreasing with mortality and outflows migration. 

5. Gendered Agglomeration and Innovation Dynamics, With Ahodode B. G. C., Working Paper (2024).

6. Efficacité des politiques de soutien aux entreprises pour la recherche et développement, With Martin, J., Mayneris, F., & Mohnen, P., Working paper (2024).

7. National Innovation System and Knowledge Production in Canada, Working paper (2021).