Research dossier

Publications

A map of the work rather than a dump of titles: working papers, active projects, published pieces, and earlier theses.

3 items

Working papers

Projects with abstracts and presentable claims.

2025 Working Paper

Co-invention and knowledge transfer in science-industry collaboration: Evidence on Recombinant Novelty

Si Hao Li, Anne Plunket, Felipe Starosta de Waldemar

Theme
Economics of Innovation · Science of Science
Status
Presented at the 8th Geography of Innovation Conference (2025)
Output
No public link yet.

With Anne Plunket, Felipe Starosta de Waldemar

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How does collaboration with science change the direction of inventive activity? We study non-academic inventors' first co-invention with an academic partner using French patent data from 1976--2013 matched to scientific-author information. Measuring recombinant novelty as IPC4 combinations new to an inventor's prior technological history, we estimate dynamic effects with staggered difference-in-differences designs. A first science--industry collaboration generates a sharp but short-lived increase in exploratory recombination: inventors produce more new technological combinations in the collaboration year, while the share of novel combinations subsequently declines. We show that this pattern reflects a transition from domain opening to domain integration. The initial shock is driven by combinations involving new technological components, whereas later recombination increasingly combines newly accessed IPC classes with the inventor's prior technological portfolio. The domain opened by the first academic collaboration also continues to be reused in later patents, including outside the initial academic partnership and original co-invention team. These findings are consistent with science--industry co-invention operating as a learning-by-doing event that reshapes industrial inventors' search repertoires.

2025 Working Paper

Fast Estimation of BLP Demand with Automatic Differentiation

Si Hao Li, Julien Monardo

Theme
Industrial Organization · Computational Social Science
Status
2025
Output
No public link yet.

With Julien Monardo

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The Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) model is a workhorse of empirical industrial organization, but GMM estimation is often bottlenecked by repeated share evaluation and fixed-point inversion on CPUs. We implement the demand-side BLP pipeline in JAX to exploit GPU execution with just-in-time compilation and automatic differentiation. On PyBLP-simulated benchmark economies, our implementation reproduces PyBLP estimates on identical markets and delivers large speedups in share computation that grow with the number of simulation draws, products, and markets.

2025 Working Paper

What are economists telling us in the top 5? A Structural Topic Models approach

Si Hao Li

Theme
Science of Science · Computational Social Science
Status
2025
Output
PaperCode
Read abstract

This article examines the evolution of research topics published in top five economics journals using advanced textual analysis methods. We implemented Structural Topic Model (Roberts et al., 2014) on our database of articles from the top five journals, which we constructed using web scraping techniques from the RePEc platform. Our findings indicate that economics has evolved, with an increasing resurgence of empirical methods and a significant decline in theory, particularly in general equilibrium.

2 items

Work in progress

Active projects where the public summary is intentionally brief.

2025 Work in Progress

Second-Degree Price Discrimination in Digital Goods: Grey Markets and Conflict

Si Hao Li, Martin Delville

Theme
Industrial Organization · Digital Economics
Status
2025
Output
No public link yet.

With Martin Delville

2025 Work in Progress

Mobile Money, Interoperability and Competition

Lukasz Grzybowski, Marc Bourreau, Si Hao Li

Theme
Industrial Organization · Digital Economics
Status
2025
Output
No public link yet.

With Lukasz Grzybowski, Marc Bourreau

3 items

Published and conference papers

Articles and shorter public outputs.

2026 Journal Article

From angel investors to venture capital: fundraising pathways in professional esports teams

Florian Lefebvre, Nicolas Scelles, Pedro Almeida Couto, Axel Bérard, Si Hao Li

Theme
Economics of Sports
Status
Published in Venture Capital (2026)
Output
Paper

With Florian Lefebvre, Nicolas Scelles, Pedro Almeida Couto, Axel Bérard

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Professional esports teams increasingly rely on venture capital (VC) to fund their growth. However, the structural dynamics of this financing model and its financial viability remain underexplored. Anchored in signaling theory, this qualitative study based on seven interviews with esports team representatives and esports investors investigates the structuration of fundraising deals within professional esports teams, analyzing its stages and allocation of funds. It highlights that VC funding is often preceded by early-stage financing, such as business angels and Series A or B rounds, serving as legitimacy signals and used as a cyclical resource for specific projects like international expansion or player acquisitions. Interviews with team executives indicate that fundraising is critical for survival and project acceleration but does not lead to a viable income stream. Challenges include esports' fluctuating market appeal, limited investor understanding of the industry, and difficulties in monetization. However, emerging opportunities lie in leveraging fan communities, exploring cryptocurrency integration, and artificial intelligence applications. The findings deepen the understanding of VC structuration in esports, identifying adaptability and balancing current growth with financial viability as key success factors. Offering practical insights, this study underscores the need for innovative, viable business models to navigate the complexities of the esports ecosystem.

2024 Journal Article

Les clubs amateurs face aux défis du financement : entre inégalités économiques et place croissante du privé

Antonin Chenard, Si Hao Li

Theme
Economics of Sports
Status
Regards croisés sur l'économie, 2024
Output
Paper

With Antonin Chenard

2024 Journal Article

Des innovations financières aux conséquences néfastes ?

Jérôme Héricourt, Samuel Ligonnière, Si Hao Li, Olivier Pernet-Coudrier

Theme
Economics of Innovation
Status
Regards croisés sur l'économie, 2024
Output
Paper

With Jérôme Héricourt, Samuel Ligonnière, Olivier Pernet-Coudrier

2 items

Master theses

Earlier work kept as intellectual background.

Master thesis Master Thesis

Innovation under Interoperability: An Analysis of Asymmetric Ad-Financed Platforms

Si Hao Li

Theme
Industrial Organization · Digital Economics
Status
Supervised by Marc Bourreau
Output
No public link yet.
Read abstract

This exercise proposes a theoretical model inspired by and extending the recent approach of Bourreau et al. (2023), to analyze the effect of interoperability on innovation incentives in an asymmetric market of advertising-funded digital platforms (such as WhatsApp vs. Signal). Within a classic Hotelling framework with endogenous multi-homing, we explicitly incorporate strategic innovation choices in the presence of technological spillovers, allowing the dominant platform to copy the innovations developed by the minority platform. Our results show that the introduction or increase of interoperability reduces users' propensity to multi-home, thereby incentivizing the minority platform to intensify its investment in innovation to preserve its vertical differentiation. Conversely, the spillover discourages autonomous innovation by the leader. These theoretical results highlight the necessity of fine-tuned regulation of interoperability levels and the protection of innovations to effectively promote innovation dynamics.

Master thesis Master Thesis

Network externalities, Compatibility, and R&D: A Literature Review

Si Hao Li

Theme
Industrial Organization · Economics of Innovation
Status
Supervised by Marc Bourreau
Output
No public link yet.
Read abstract

This literature review aims to provide a synthesis of key themes in Industrial Organization, with a particular focus on markets characterized by network externalities. First, it explores the relationship between competition and innovation before examining the issue of compatibility and its implications, notably in the context of the Digital Markets Act.