Created at the Collège de France by Prof. Philippe Aghion, the Centre de recherche sur l'économie de l'innovation has been renamed " Farhi Innovation Lab ", in memory of Emmanuel Farhi.
The Innovation Lab's work is carried out at INSEAD and Collège de France. The center collects and merges never-before-seen microdata (company-level accounting data, customs data, patent data, etc.) and mobilizes talented young researchers and world-renowned economic specialists to generate cutting-edge research on the economics of innovation, productivity, business dynamics, entrepreneurship and growth.
The laboratory's research is published in leading journals and focuses on how innovation, firm dynamics and productivity growth interact with competition and trade, inequality and social mobility, taxation, labor market outcomes, automation and the environment.
The research conducted by the center sheds new light on growth conundrums such as industrial take-off, the middle-income trap, secular stagnation and the dynamics of inequality. A weekly research seminar and an annual conference form the basis of a fertile ecosystem for the creation of new knowledge.
The laboratory has also created the " Innovation Campus ", which aims to reach out to high school students in disadvantaged or remote areas and familiarize them with cutting-edge research in economics, biology and mathematics. As part of its work, the Campus has succeeded in rethinking the content and teaching of economics for French high school students, to come closer to the way economics is taught in the world's top university institutes.
The laboratory is funded mainly by an ERC Advanced Grant and the Banque de France, but also by LVMH, BNP Paribas, BRED and SFIL.