April Franco

Dr. April Franco is a research economist affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Economics. Her work bridges entrepreneurship and academic research, focusing on management science, industrial organization, and applied game theory. Notably, her landmark paper with Darren Filson pioneered analysis of employee spin-outs as a key source of new firms, using evidence from the hard drive industry.

• Education: BA in Economics and Philosophy from UCLA
• Graduate research at UC Berkeley as a Research Assistant

Her research explores questions like overconfidence's role in management and intra-firm organizational structures. Despite prolific contributions, she humbly compares selecting her most impactful work to choosing among children.

Advice to aspiring researchers emphasizes foundational skills in mathematics, computational analysis (R/Python), and effective writing. She stresses academia's entrepreneurial nature requiring self-motivation and intellectual curiosity.