Job Market Candidates 2025/26
Ph.D. Program in Economics

Education

Ph.D. in Economics, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2021–present

Visiting Ph.D. Stdent, UPF, 2024

M.A. Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2017–2020

B.Sc. Economics & Business, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2016–2019

Visiting Undergraduate Student (Economics), University of Toronto, 2018

B.A. Philosophy & Art History, University of Freiburg, 2012–2016

Visiting Undergraduate Student (Philosophy), École Normale Supérieure Lyon, 2014

Fields of Specialization

Empirical Corporate Finance; Law & Finance; Entrepreneurial Finance

Teaching Experience

Goethe University Frankfurt 2020–present

Introductory Microeconomics (B.Sc.)

Statistics 101 (B.Sc.)

Advanced Topics in IO (Ph.D.)

35 supervised bachelor theses

curriculum vitae

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References

Collateral Law and Enforcement Risk: Evidence from Native American Reservations (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Drawing on Native American reservations, I identify how collateral law and contract enforcement interact to shape credit and real economic activity. I exploit (i) a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that unexpectedly opened a pathway for state-court enforcement and (ii) the staggered adoption of tribal secured transactions laws (STLs) enabling movable-asset collateral. Difference-in-differences estimates show the 2001 ruling increases average loan size by 10% where STLs existed before 2001. STL adoption itself increases it by 11%. However, enforcement increases credit only where STLs are in place; Likewise, STLs raises lending only when enforcement is reliable. Effects are largest under uniform codes with centralized filing systems, and gains are disproportionately concentrated in ex ante wealthier reservations. STL adoption raises wages and income, not total employment; employment reallocates toward movable-asset–intensive sectors, consistent with a collateral-based mechanism. I provide causal microfoundations for the finance-growth link, showing that collateral-enforcement complementarities mediate the translation of financial development into real outcomes, with heterogeneous effects across jurisdictions, sectors, and legal designs.

Securing Debt in the Knowledge Economy: Evidence from Intellectual Property Registers  (with L. Ciaramella & D. Heller, Revise & Resubmit at JFQA (2nd round))

Abstract: This paper examines how intellectual property (IP) rights function as collateral in debt financing. Using newly linked French IP registers and firm-level financials, we provide novel comprehensive evidence on the role of trademarks, patents, and designs in loan contracts. To our knowledge, we are first to document the systematic use of trademarks as the most common IP type pledged as collateral. Pledging IP expands access to long-term debt—especially for private, intangible-rich SMEs—and identify this effect by exploiting a 2006 French securities-law reform that liberalized collateralization rules. IP collateral remains central to loan agreements even after tangible assets became easier to pledge, and firms increasingly turned to patents with financing-friendly characteristics following the reform. Taken together, our results extend the collateral literature to intangibles, especially trademarks, and demonstrate how legal design shapes IP-backed lending—offering a pathway to counter the secular decline in lending associated with the shrinking share of tangible assets in modern, knowledge-based economies.

The Formal Granting of Intellectual Property Rights and External Financing  (with L. Ciaramella & D. Heller)

Abstract: Formal registration reduces legal uncertainty and converts property rights into pledgeable assets. Using administrative data on over 12,000 trademark collateralizations in France, we show that registration sharply increases the likelihood of pledging. Exploiting the 2006 introduction of online publication at the French IP office as a plausibly exogenous shock, we leverage variation over time and across firms' competitive environments to identify the effects of increased legal certainty. Online publication increased transparency, which invited competitor scrutiny and oppositions, raising screening intensity—making the resulting trademarks more legally certain, and thus more usable as collateral. Greater legal certainty accelerates the timing and increases the likelihood of IP collateralization—by roughly 40% within a year of registration—especially among informationally opaque SMEs. Firms are also less likely to experience liquidity constraints following the reform, consistent with improved access to external finance. The results highlight that by reducing legal uncertainty, the formal granting of IP rights makes intangible assets pledgeable.