Antonin Bergeaud Rewarded as one of the Best French Young Economists in 2024

HEC Paris Associate Professor Antonin Bergeaud, has been chosen as one of the three nominees for the 2024 Best Young Economist Award. This prize was created by the Cercle des Economistes and the Le Monde daily, along with Professors Fanny Henriet at the Aix-Marseille School of Economics and Benjamin Marx at Boston University. The 2024 award winner is Alexandra Roulet, a Professor at INSEAD and a member of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the French Council of Economic Analysis (CAE).

How the Government Should Finance Innovation

Antonin Bergeaud has been investigating the factors explaining variations in productivity and how innovation stimulates it. To this end, the academic in HEC’s Department of Economics and Decision Science has been examining the effect of public allocations for research and development (R&D) funding on innovation and the best way to allocate money to research.

In France, for example, public R&D spending accounts for approximately 18 billion euros per year, with 7 billion euros allocated to the research tax credit. In their study, Bergeaud and his fellow researchers analyzed the LabEx project. Launched in 2010, this project distributed 1.5 billion euros of funding among 171 research laboratories in France, encouraging them to form partnerships with the private sector. They demonstrated that by primarily targeting universities rather than companies, it is actually possible to reach businesses with the highest capacity to collaborate with research labs, thereby increasing their innovation efforts.

When interviewed by Knowledge@HEC, Bergeaud explains: “We show that there’s clearly a benefit to government funding for academic research, especially in allocations to the best researchers. So, government officials could consider increasing carefully targeted investment in public research. We also find that firms with the most exposure to knowledge from public sector labs end up doing the most R&D on their own. So we recommend that authorities develop more connections that will lead to innovation. Companies who understand the impact of R&D spillover could expand their efforts to form connections with private-sector labs.”

You can learn more about his research, “From Public Labs to Private Firms: Magnitude and Channels of R&D Spillovers” - co-authored with Arthur Guillouzouic of The Institute for Public Policy, Emeric Henry of SciencePo and CEPR, and Clément Malgouyres of CNRS-CREST  - in Knowledge@HEC. We published a short article entitled: “Why Public Funding for Academic Research Boosts Corporate R&D Too”. You can also read a summary in French in The Conversation France here.

Why this award

The Best Young Economist Award (“Prix du meilleur jeune économiste"), presented by Le Monde and the Cercle des Economistes, recognizes academic excellence, which lies in the quality of the candidates' international publications. The award also aims to highlight the ability to analyze economic and social realities, as well as participation in public debate. The candidates stand out thanks to their proposals addressing complex societal issues and contributions to economic policy or decision-making within companies.

"This award is a great honor, especially in succeeding previous winners and nominees. During the award ceremony, I had the opportunity to discuss my research with guests, journalists, and members of the Cercle des Economistes," Bergeaud told Knowledge@HEC.

Read more about Professor Bergeaud’s research in Le Monde (in French) here.