I am a PhD candidate at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), and I am on the 2026–2027 academic job market. I was a visiting PhD student at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, in Spring 2026.
My research focuses on the economics of innovation. I study how innovation responds to changes in incentives, constraints, and technological opportunities, and what these responses reveal about the nature of innovation.
Methodologically, my research combines econometrics with modern computational methods.
Email: danfeng.yue@tse-fr.eu
Research
Job Market Paper
Recombining Knowledge after Patent Eligibility Tightening
Abstract: When the returns to an existing use of knowledge decline, innovators may respond not only by reallocating innovation activities, but also by changing how that knowledge is used. We study knowledge recombination as a margin of adjustment using the 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International decision, which tightened patent eligibility for abstract ideas and reduced patent protection in affected technologies. We find that innovators respond by increasing cross-technology recombination: patent applications in more exposed technologies recombine knowledge from a broader set of technological components and shift toward combinations that are less exposed to the new eligibility standard. This response is stronger for technologies with greater recombination opportunities, measured using historical patterns of technological compatibility. At the firm level, technological boundaries determine which of these opportunities can be accessed at relatively low cost. Firms with greater recombination capacity sustain more innovation in affected technologies and experience smaller declines in economic performance after Alice.
More exposed technologies increase recombination more strongly after Alice when they have greater pre-existing recombination opportunities. Recombination is measured by the number of distinct technology classes in each patent.
Presentations: Fall 2025 TSE Finance Workshop; Spring 2026 Kellogg FINC Brown Bag; Spring 2026 TPRI Research Workshop; 2026 Chicago Entrepreneurial Finance Workshop; 2026 EEA-ESEM Congress; 2026 EARIE (scheduled); 2026 TSE PhD Student Workshop (discussant: Doh-Shin Jeon; scheduled).
Working Papers
How Legal Remedies Drive Patent Litigation Explosions: Evidence from the eBay Ruling
Abstract: The 2006 eBay Inc. v. MercExchange decision marked a pivotal shift in U.S. patent law by replacing automatic injunctions with a more discretionary, damages-based remedy. This paper argues that the ruling catalyzed a wave of patent litigation, particularly by patent assertion entities (PAEs), by altering the bargaining environment and shifting the resolution of disputes from settlements to court judgments. Using a screening model with asymmetric information, I show that the probability of litigation increases as injunctions become harder to obtain —especially for PAEs targeting high-sales firms. Empirical evidence from a difference-in-differences analysis supports this theoretical prediction. These results highlight how legal reforms can reshape the strategic behavior of litigants and alter the landscape of patent enforcement.
After the eBay ruling, the number of high-sales defendants increased much more sharply than that of lower-sales defendants. This pattern is consistent with larger firms experiencing a greater change in litigation incentives when the risk of injunction falls.
Presentations: Fall 2024 TSE Finance Workshop; 2025 Entrepreneurship and Finance (ENTFIN) Conference, PhD Session and CASCAD Session (discussant: Logan Emery).
Work in Progress
AI and New Product Creation
Abstract: This project studies how the public release of ChatGPT, which made a broad set of large language model (LLM) capabilities widely accessible, reshapes new product creation. Using data on digital product launches from Product Hunt, I characterize products by the functions they perform and map these functions to LLM capabilities. I examine how new product creation changes across functions with different exposure to these newly accessible capabilities.
News-Based Measures: A Count Approach
Abstract: This paper proposes a count-based approach to constructing news-based economic uncertainty indices. Using daily article counts from three major French newspapers between 2001 and 2025, we model the occurrence of economic policy uncertainty news using Poisson processes. The framework provides a statistically grounded alternative to proportion-based measures and allows for formal testing of distributional assumptions underlying news-based indices.
Teaching
Toulouse School of Economics
Teaching Assistant
Central University of Finance and Economics
Teaching Assistant