During the 2008/2009 crisis French businesses were hit by a slump in domestic and world demand, while French banks encountered difficulties that may have encouraged them to tighten their credit conditions. This crisis strongly affected the number of business start-ups as well as the initial size...

What is a technologically advanced economy? We propose some theoretical elements showing how heterogeneity in the firms' innovation behaviours can be analysed and exploited in order to assess the technological performance of the economy. Three empirical applications using French data are derived...

We use information on a French loan guarantee program in order to assess the consequences of credit constraints for new ventures. Loan Guarantee Programs, as implemented in France, are an effective instrument to help young firms grow faster, both in terms of employment and capital. These effects...

This paper examines whether patenting increases the private incentives to innovate in manufacturing. In order to study this issue, we build a model in which the value of an innovation depends both on the type of innovation implemented (product, process) and on the existence or not of a patent...