Firm dynamics, innovation and productivity.

Summary This thesis studies different aspects of firm dynamics, both theoretically and empirically. All chapters make extensive use of different microeconomic databases to test the theoretical predictions. The first chapter focuses on the innovation premium, i.e. the response of the wages of employees of a firm that increases its R&D intensity and thus becomes closer to the technological frontier. The evaluation of this response is done using a database on the wage of 1% of the UK-based workers. The second chapter looks at the response of firms' innovation and productivity to an export demand shock, considering French firms with at least one patent, and using both tax and customs databases. Finally, the third chapter studies the role of adjustment costs of production factors, and in particular of corporate real estate, on the employment dynamics of firms following a productivity shock. This chapter uses a large sample of French single-establishment firms. All three chapters study different dimensions of the response of firms to a demand or productivity shock, whether it is a response in terms of employment, wages, innovation or size.