Short-term increasing returns to production factors are usually found in empirical studies. We argue they can be due to omitted variables, particularly the intensity of factor utilisation. Thanks to original French firm-level data (1992-2008), we show how increasing returns to scale disappear...

We study the macroeconomic effects of rational asset bubbles in an overlapping-generations economy where asset trading requires specialized intermediaries and where agents freely choose between working in the production or in the financial sector. Frictions in the market for deposits create...

The interest rate at which US firms borrow funds has two features: (i) it moves in a countercyclical fashion and (ii) it is an inverted leading indicator of real economic activity: low interest rates today forecast future booms in GDP, consumption, investment, and employment. We show that a...

French Abstract: Nous mobilisons un modèle de micro-simulation s’appuyant sur un jeu de données individuelles particulièrement riche pour évaluer l’impact de la crise sanitaire sur la situation financière de plus de 645 000 entreprises françaises en 2020. Nous montrons que la...

We show that set-up costs are a key determinant of the capital structure of young firms. Theoretically, when firms face high set-up costs, they can only be established by leveraging up and lengthening debt maturity. Empirically, we use a large sample of French firms to show that young firms have...

How do firms finance their investment? To what extent does the financing mix depends on the nature or the size of investment? To what extent does the funding mix of investment vary along firm size? Relying on a unique database of firms covering 72% of the value added in France over three...

This paper contributes to an emerging literature aimed at uncovering the linkages between biodiversity loss and financial instability, by exploring biodiversity-related financial risks (BRFR) in France. We first build on previous studies and propose an analytical framework to understand BRFR,...

Based on a unique database consisting of hundreds of thousands of non-alcoholic beverage price records collected in about 800 supermarkets in France, we evaluate the impact on prices of the soda tax, an excise on drinks with added sugar or sweetener, introduced in January 2012 in France. We...

Using a novel dataset from a large supermarket retailer in a European country that never engages in temporary sales, we establish that prices are actually as sticky as regular prices. Circumventing the debate on whether sales have to be included or excluded from price adjustments, we find...

In this paper, we investigate the effect of real estate prices on productive investment. We build a simple theoretical framework of firms' investment with credit rationing and real estate collateral. We show that real estate prices affect firms' borrowing capacities through two channels. An...