We use quasi-random local variation in the number of young men who died as a result of World War I to estimate the impact of this demographic shock on innovation and structural change in France. Our analysis shows that excess mortality led to an increase in patenting activity in counties with high pre-war education levels, driven predominantly by innovations in labor-saving technologies. Our estimates imply that an additional 6,000 patents were filed in the 15 years following the war, amounting roughly to the average annual number of patents filed pre-war. We find a positive association between war-related mortality and wage growth as well as with the adoption of machines in the agricultural sector, providing additional evidence that incentives to escape labor scarcity are driving the innovation response to mortality.

We examine the optimal mix and timing of R&D support policies using France's comprehensive system of tax credits, age-based incentives, and direct grants. Matching French tax returns with administrative R&D expenditures and patent data, we investigate which policy combinations improve firm performance and innovation quality across the firm lifecycle. We exploit age eligibility thresholds using regression discontinuity design, comparing firms around the 8-year cutoff for Young Innovative Enterprises (JEI) and Young University Enterprises (JEU) schemes. Preliminary results suggest the 2004 JEI/JEU introduction increased patent applications by approximately 20 patents and improved citation quality for eligible firms. Our analysis reveals policy complementarities between different R&D support instruments and identifies when such support yields the highest returns.

To what extent do the risks of starting and running a business lead to resource misallocation? Individuals face a variety of risks when starting a business---a key one is the difference in earnings relative to staying in salaried employment. Starting a business may offer a higher probability of faster earnings growth, but can also increase the probability of very low earnings realizations. We provide novel evidence on the earnings dynamics of business owners compared with employees using rich administrative data from the UK. We complement these findings by implementing a new survey to elicit the risk preferences and constraints faced by potential and current business owners. Informed by these findings we develop and estimate a model of occupational choice to quantify the extent to which earning risk discourages entrepreneurship and study the different ways policy can alleviate these risks.

This paper examines how innovation affects firm survival, scale, productivity, and market position by comparing first-time patenting firms to otherwise similar firms that never patent. We further distinguish between granted and rejected patent applications to separate the returns to innovation from those attributable specifically to patent approval. Firms with granted patents exhibit substantially lower exit rates, nearly 20 percentage points lower than unsuccessful applicants, indicating large extensive-margin effects. Beyond survival, granted patents are associated with pronounced intensive-margin responses: firm scale, measured by revenue, value added, and wage bills, is approximately 25–30 log points larger. Firms with rejected patent applications also grow faster than non-patenting peers. In contrast, we find no systematic effects on firm productivity or the capital-labor mix, suggesting that post-innovation growth is driven by the expansion of existing activities. Finally, we document significant gains in industry-level market shares among successfully patenting firms.