We investigate the impact of wealth taxation on the behavior of entrepreneurs in France. Before 2018, business sales triggered the conversion of tax-exempt business assets into taxable wealth. Using personal tax data, we confirm that retirement of entrepreneurs leads to large annual wealth tax...

We estimate the impact of French town hall elections held in mid-March 2020 on the mortality of 170,000 male candidates aged above 60. Their excess mortality during March and April was similar to the general population. We compare candidates in cities with two candidate lists to those in cities...

This paper sheds new light on the negative effect of spatial distance on knowledge flows. We show that it is rooted in the dynamics of the innovation network formation over firms' life-cycles: young and small firms have contacts near them, and progressively expand their network. Using patent...

Using French data, we provide: a) causal evidence that a drop in local public goods provision decreases private sector activity, and b) evidence consistent with monopsony power of the public sector in local labor markets. We introduce a public sector with these two key characteristics in an...