Innovation Job Candidates 2025

Contact me if I have missed you. I will do my best to highlight these papers on @Afinetheorem during the job market season.

This list focuses on candidates working on innovation, entrepreneurship, technology adoption, AI, and related topics in economics and management. Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name.

• Mohamad Adhami

  Stanford
  Quantifying Knowledge Spillovers Using Firm and Product DynamicsProduct exit + firm exit identify the wedge between private and social return of innovation → 16pp

  (other growth papers)

  Innovation

• Manfredi Aliberti

  EIEF
  Beyond the Lab: The Effect of PhD Programs on InnovationLocal PhD programs opening in Italy → large increase in local patenting → highly cost-effective

  (other papers on tech adoption)

  Innovation

• David Almog

  Northwestern
  Barriers to AI Adoption: Image Concerns at WorkWhen it is observable that I use AI, in a field experiment I use it less even though productivity falls

  (many other papers look at Gen AI adoption and image/behavioral effects)

  AI

• Sara Benetti

  University of British Columbia
  The Social Consequences of Technological Change: Evidence from US Electrification and Immigrant LaborElectrification increased social cohesion and workplace integration in early 20th c

  Innovation

• Aditya Bhandari

  University of Chicago
  Technology and the Geography of Industrial PolicyIn UK data, productivity is mostly Hicks-neutral, which means that there is a role for place-based policies

  Innovation

• Christine Blandhol

  Princeton University
  Curbing Tax Flight? Aggregate Effects of Taxing Entrepreneur MigrationStudies how a tax on migrating entrepreneurs impacts the economy, directly linking to entrepreneurship and policy

  Entrepreneurship

• John Bonney

  Stanford University
  How Network Hiring by Entrepreneurs Shapes Firm Formation and PerformanceIn Norwegian data startup that hire ex-coworkers of their founders grow much faster and model estimates show a quarter would not have been founded at all without access to these early high-quality coworkers

  (other innovation and entrep papers)

  Entrepreneurship

• Justine Boudou

  HBS
  Not All That Glitters is Gold: Firm Hiring in the Market for Knowledge WorkersAcademic productivity is only weakly correlated with productivity of scientists in industry and in fields where the link in weaker, industry hires are more likely to be laid off

  (many other innovation papers)

  Innovation

• Raman Singh Chhina

  Chicago
  Startups and the StateUsing Startup India, can bureaucrats identify good startups and hence direct capital better than uniform subsidies?

  (plus other entrep papers)

  Entrepreneurship

• Manuela Collis

  Toronto Rotman
  Sexual Misconduct and Scientific ProductionUniversity sexual misconduct harms productivity of labs where it occurs, particularly after disclosure

  Innovation

• Pier Paolo Creanza

  Princeton
  Factories of Ideas? Big Business and the Golden Age of American InnovationMergers in early 20th c → big increase in innovation via research labs

  (also has work on Italian returning scientists and JEH on Greek trade networks and "connectors")

  Innovation

• Benjamin Davies

  Stanford
  The Value of Conceptual KnowledgeFormalizes how beliefs about concepts (relationships between states) relates to signals (probability of states) and how this might matter for, e.g., AI-human task delegation

  AI

• Chris Esposito

  UCLA
  Global Science Sustains U.S. InnovationIn the "supply chain" of U.S. innovation, the citation path from NSF research to U.S. patents involves substantial foreign development

  (many other innovation papers)

  Innovation

• Tianyu Fan

  Yale
  The Labor Market Incidence of New TechnologiesEstimates how fields relate in "skill space" and how shocks from new innovation affect wages given the correlation between current job and ones you might move into

  (other automation papers)

  Innovation · AI

• Stephen Hobler

  LSE
  Worker Mobility and the Diffusion of Radical TechnologiesAdoption of new tech is higher in more rigid labor markets, but worker diffusion is how tech spreads, so the dynamic effect is really bad

  Innovation

• Ruru Hoong

  MIT
  Calibrated Coarsening: Designing Information for AI-Assisted DecisionsWhat is optimal provision of information to behavioral humans working with AI?

  (many other AI papers)

  AI

• Brian Jabarian

  Paris School of Economics
  Voice AI in FirmsAI-led interviews are preferred by jobseekers, increase hire rates and decrease turnover

  (many other AI papers)

  AI

• Furkan Kilic

  Chicago
  Spatial Allocation of Inventors, Knowledge Diffusion and GrowthStructural spatial model of citation links across industry → big US innovation hubs should be even bigger if you want to maximize growth

  (many other innovation papers)

  Innovation

• Eric Klemm

  University College London
  Early Retirement, Capital Adjustment and Technology AdoptionFirms that lose older workers (due to a change in early retirement law in Germany) actually do worse at adopting new technology perhaps due to firm-specific integration challenges

  Innovation

• Yakup Kutsal Koca

  USC
  Labor Market Outcomes of AI AutomationIn a structural labor model with AI diffusion, human specialists are more likely to face job losses

  AI

• Andrew Koh

  MIT
  Robust Technology RegulationAdaptive sandboxes are the optimal mechanism for letting firms deploy potentially risky technologies

  (many other AI papers)

  AI

• Xuelai LI

  LBS
  Venture Capital and Scientists’ Selection into EntrepreneurshipShock to VC funding leads to a large increase in business formation for scientists working on "entrepreneurial" categories

  (many other VC papers)

  Entrepreneurship

• Sijie Lin

  Toronto
  Learning to Prompt: Human Adaptation in Production with Generative AIHumans adapt prompts to more quickly improve how new AI models work, based on data from MidJourney

  (other AI papers)

  AI

• Yuchen Lin

  Warwick
  The U.S. Origins of Chinese Science1970s reopening of Chinese science → schools with pre-52 US links send more grad students → those connections create similarities b/w US and Chinese physics at linked schools

  Innovation

• Yucheng Lu

  NYU
  Differential Impact of GenAI on Research Productivity: Evidence from ICLR(also SimCity, a macrosimulation model based on LLMs that replicates data, and FIND, a database connecting NSF grants to many outcomes)

  AI · Innovation

• Anna Lukianova

  Wisconsin
  State Income Taxation, Entrepreneurship, and Spatial Inequality in the U.S.4.4% of entrepreneurial formation rates due to state-level business taxes

  Entrepreneurship

• Zach Luther

  Vanderbilt
  The Gravity of Patent Protection: Policy, Frictions, and Technology DiffusionFree trade more effective that standardizing patent policy across nations in increasing gains to trade from innovation

  (other papers on intl. patent families and unequal treatment of foreign patents)

  Innovation

• Jack Ma

  Cornell
  Extreme Heat and Directed InnovationPlaces in Europe hit with extreme heat → more labor-saving innovation → mitigates some of productivity loss

  Innovation

• Roger Masclans

  Duke
  Science, Startups, and the Problem of Value Capture: Thin Acquisition Markets, Weak Outside OptionsDeep tech startups capture a smaller share of value when acquired even though they create more value on average

  (many other papers on science and innovation)

  Entrepreneurship

• Pablo Mileni Munari

  Toulouse
  Beyond Skills: Firms, Automation and Wage InequalityAutomation leads to gaps in firm productivity as well as to heterogeneity across worker types

  Innovation

• Rory Mullen

  Warwick (AP)
  Beyond Patent Ownership: Learning About Technological UsefulnessML can help estimate the value of non-patented technology of firms

  Innovation

• Christina Nguyen

  MIT Sloan
  When Low Performance Takes Root: Deadwood and Delay at the U.S. Patent OfficeDeadwood examiners at USPTO not only perform slowly but also lower productivity of folks in their same work group

  (many other papers on innovation)

  Innovation

• Vishan Nigam

  MIT
  Specialization by Design: The Unequal Geographic Effects of Modular Product DesignModular innovation in the auto industry creates economies of scope which lead to winner-take-all production even in an industry with substantial local differentiation in auto preference

  Innovation

• Koki Okumura

  UCLA
  Ownership Structure and Economic GrowthIncrease in common ownership → more internalization of spillovers but less business-stealing → less overall growth empirically

  (many other innovation and diffusion papers)

  Innovation

• Ana Oliveira

  Utrecht
  Till Automation Do Us Part: Firm Productivity and Worker Exit Following Technology AdoptionAdoption of automation technology in many cases reduces firm productivity and leads to exit of high-skill workers

  Innovation

• Kyeongmin Park

  Rochester
  Quality-driven AutomationRobot use linked to higher quality (price per unit) than rivals, and higher increase in quality after adoption

  (also has paper on early AI adoption in Korea)

  Innovation

• Yinan Qiu

  Princeton
  Venture Capital Networks and Cross-Border Startup Knowledge SpilloversVCs with foreign investments → more citations from the US to the patents of the foreign portfolio

  Entrepreneurship

• Eric Robertson

  Virginia
  Economic Ideas and Policy Implementation: Evidence from Malthusian Training in British Indian BureaucracyBritish bureaucrats trained under Malthus → less fiscal policy during droughts in their region in India

  Innovation

• Matteo Ruzzante

  Northwestern
  Price Regulation and the Adoption–Innovation Trade-offCotton seed price regulation in India increases adoption, but harms dynamically because of decreased innovation

  (Also worked with Sims on paper above)

  Innovation

• Alexander Sawyer

  Penn
  Learning through Sequential Interactions in the Market for Venture CapitalStructural model, VC (and to lesser extent entrepreneur) evaluation more valuable than learning while scaling for efficient capital allocation

  Entrepreneurship

• Anne Schaller

  Vanderbilt
  Competitive Effects of State Antitrust Laws: Evidence from the Progressive EraState-level late 19th c antitrust laws did little to drive new entry or limit market power

  Innovation

• Jesse Silbert

  Princeton
  Making Talk Cheap: Generative AI and Labor Market SignalingLLMs make it harder for applications to signal quality, and experimentally employers know this

  AI

• Chris Sims

  Northwestern
  The Origins of the Nitrogen RevolutionGuano in 19th c → nitrogen-deficient parts of UK produce more nitrogen-using crops → benefit lower for regions that trade heavily with nitrogen-heavy areas

  (Also has papers on innovation in IR-era France from national exhibitions, and importance of rail vs telegraph for cointegrating prices across UK regions in 19th c)

  Innovation

• Lidia Smitkova

  University of Oxford
  Export Subsidies as Industrial Policy: the Case of the 19th Century Sugar Industry1860s Austro-Hungarian sugar beet export subsidy did not improve welfare by letting firms hit optimal scale but instead increased misallocation and led to overproduction harming welfare

  Innovation

• Jiaming Soh

  Michigan
  Does Government Procurement Promote Small Business Growth?Govt contracts for small construction → more growth later, partly for productivity upgrades rather than just liquidity constraints

  Entrepreneurship

• Songyuan Teng

  Yale
  Innovation Through RecombinationIO model in pharma sector of recombining known knowledge versus creating new knowledge and the ex-ante nonobvious implications of subsidies to both

  (other papers on innovation)

  Innovation

• Hong-Yi TuYe

  MIT Sloan
  Rethinking Blitzscaling: Entrepreneurial Labor Impacts of Transformative AI

  AI · Entrepreneurship

• Tasaneeya Viratyosin

  Penn Wharton
  Innovation Spillovers Along the Supply ChainStructural model of innovation diffusion via supply chain relationship, estimated via R&D tax credit shocks among supply chain partners

  (has another paper on diffusion)

  Innovation

• Hayley Wabiszewski

  Wash U, postdoc Utah
  Startup Acquisitions and Innovation in the Biopharmaceutical IndustryStructural model, dynamic, of pharma acquisitions, showing precisely where harmful acquisitions may occur given selection

  Innovation · Entrepreneurship

• Xizhao Wang

  Northwestern
  Patenting and Information DisclosureUsing B-D Act, strategic obfuscation in patents when looking at description vs. summary

  (many other papers on science policy)

  Innovation

• Qian Wang

  Maryland
  Innovation Path Choices in China's Electric Vehicle Battery IndustryIO model of innovation choice between two battery technologies showing substantial underprovision on the socially more valuable one though not mainly due to spillovers

  Innovation

• Yucheng Wong

  Rochester
  Venture Capital Contracts and Heterogeneous InnovationIn a dynamic structural model, VCs vs debt = much higher right tail outcomes even though few firms ever get VC

  (lots of other VC and knowledge diffusion papers)

  Entrepreneurship · Innovation

• Nicholas Wu

  Yale
  Solving Problems of Unknown DifficultyOptimal exploration and principal-agent optimal exploration when both the difficulty and payoff of different outcomes is unknown

  AI

• Hongyuan Xia

  Cornell
  How Does Industry Shape Academic Science? Evidence from "Million Dollar Plants"Million Dollar Plants lead to a shift in the direction of local science toward that relevant to the focal firm

  (also has more traditional management/innovation papers)

  Innovation

• Zili Yang

  USC
  Technology M&A and Knowledge DiffusionAcquisitions, using failed acquisitions as an instrument, increase citation in-industry of acquirer's patents

  (also has paper on Tesla patent pledge - big jump in citations to Tesla patents from outside auto industry, esp batteries)

  Innovation

• Zhengyi Yu

  USC
  The Impacts of AI on Scientific LaborAlphaFold2 leads to increased citations to structural biologists but especially already-leading ones who adopt it more quickly

  AI · Innovation

• Qiyi Zhao

  Stanford
  Technological Change and the Market for Books, 1450-1550Gutenberg print → shorter books and more trade in ideas → bigger effect than price of printing alone

  Innovation

• Fanwen Zhu

  UCLA
  Sanctions and Startups: Trade Shocks and Inventor Entrepreneurship in the U.S.-China Trade War(also has work in progress on LLM adoption in orgs, inventor vs non-inventor founders)

  Entrepreneurship

• Jennifer Zou

  Harvard
  Dynamic Competition in Networked Markets: Evidence from US BroadbandStructural IO model of broadband rollout looking at options for increasing competition

  Innovation

Kevin A. Bryan | University of Toronto | Job Market 2025