Creation, Destruction and the Social Value of Innovations
·Draft coming soon
Abstract coming soon.
I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the London School of Economics where I study innovation, firms, and networks, with a focus on market structure and the diffusion and value of ideas.
I am affiliated with the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID), and Opportunity Insights.
Working Papers
On the Shoulders of Giants: Financial Spillovers in Innovation Networks
with Bijan Aghdasi·CEP Discussion Paper 2117, 2025·Paper·Slides·
Do markets price knowledge spillovers? We show that patent grants influence the stock returns of firms that are connected through technological knowledge dependencies. Using directed patent citations among publicly listed companies in the United States, we construct a granular measure of each firm’s exposure to new patents granted to its technologically upstream firms. Patents granted to these upstream companies significantly boost its abnormal stock returns during the week of the grant. We find that these financial spillovers are predominantly localized within a firm’s immediate technological connections. Additionally, we provide a novel empirical decomposition of financial spillovers generated from patent grants, by distinguishing those spillovers emerging from sources of technological knowledge, from those emerging from product market rivals (negative effect) and suppliers (positive effect). Our findings are robust to alternative specifications and placebo tests, and they suggest that technological knowledge spillovers create important market-priced ties between firms that are not fully captured by traditional product market relationships.
Innovation Networks and Business-Stealing
with Philippe Aghion, Matthew O. Jackson, and Antoine Mayerowitz·CEPR Discussion Paper 17911, 2023·Paper·Slides·
We use the universe of US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data on patents and inventors from 1976 to 2017 to look at how inventors’ potential concern for business-stealing affects coauthorship on patents. First, we find an inverted-U shape in the fraction of coauthors that an inventor has per year who are new as a function number of other inventors also working in an inventor’s field. Second, we find that after a breakthrough invention, an inventor brings in persistently fewer than usual new coauthors. Third, a higher potential concern for business stealing—as measured either by the number of others working or the average price markups by firms in the area—leads to a higher drop in the fraction of new co-authors per patent after a breakthrough. We show how these patterns can be explained via a simple model in which inventors trade off gains from collaboration against threats of business stealing.
A Century of Unequal Opportunity in India
2021·Slides·
Using administrative and survey data, we trace educational inequality in India from the colonial period to the present. Access remains sharply stratified by income and social identity: the schooling gap between the top and bottom income deciles is about eight years, while caste and religious minorities receive up to three fewer years of schooling even conditional on income. Similar enrollment and attainment profiles recur across periods separated by nearly a century. Even as schooling has become nearly universal, minorities remain disproportionately likely to leave school earlier, potentially shaping beliefs about opportunity. Educational investment is also highly concentrated. Between 1870 and 1915, the top 5 percent and bottom 50 percent of enrollees each received up to 35 percent of total investment. Inequality declined with the expansion of primary schooling but rose again after 1980: the bottom half’s share fell from about 38 percent in 1986 to 30 percent in 2014. Public spending increasingly mitigates this inequality, implying that privatization may expand access while worsening the distribution of educational resources.
Foreign Competition and R&D Specialization
with Antoine Mayerowitz
Publications
Innovation Networks and Business-Stealing
with Matthew O. Jackson and Antoine Mayerowitz·The Economics of Creative Destruction, ed. Ufuk Akcigit and John Van Reenen. Harvard University Press, 2023·Link
Analytical Tools in Private Equity: Return Bridge
with Victoria Ivashina·Harvard Business School Background Note 220-119, 2019·Link
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice at 40
with Josh Lerner and Terrence Shu·Harvard Business School Case 819-055, 2018·Link
Valuation Techniques in Private Equity: LBO Model
with Victoria Ivashina and Alexey Tuzikov·Harvard Business School Background Note 218-106, 2018·Link
Work in Progress
Perceptions of Innovations
with Xavier Jaravel and Josh Lerner
What are the limits to gains from AI assisted work?
2026
Innovative Firms and Technology Power
with Todd Lensman
Network Effects under Measurement Errors
with Isaac Meza and Yu-Jia Wang
LSE AMP
At LSE, I co-lead the Economics PhD Applicant Mentoring Program (AMP), which supports students and research assistants from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds in pursuing economics PhDs through 1-1 mentorship. More is available on the AMP page, the AMP website, and the LSE website.