Jean Lacroix

Jean Lacroix is an Associate Professor at Université Paris-Saclay specializing in political economy and economic history, with additional affiliations as Research Fellow at Université libre de Bruxelles and Research Associate with DIAL. His international engagement includes recent visiting positions at CESifo (May 2025) and prior fellowships at University of Cambridge, Paris School of Economics, and ENS Lyon.

His research explores two interconnected agendas: 1) The political economy of war (focusing on WWII France's collaboration networks and long-term societal impacts) and 2) Technology-institution interactions (analyzing how 19th-century innovation shaped political organizations through patent text analysis). This work combines novel historical datasets with rigorous microeconometric methods, particularly difference-in-differences approaches.

His recent publication trends reveal increasing sophistication in causal identification within historical contexts, moving beyond descriptive analysis to examine mechanisms like 'indirect connections' in elite survival. The research spans political economy, economic history, and innovation studies with strong methodological rigor.

• ANR POLECOWWII project: Investigating WWII's long-term effects on trust/voting behavior
• ANR TECHNOFIRMS project: Analyzing historical patent texts to understand innovation-institution dynamics

Professor Lacroix maintains active advising relationships through his ANR-funded projects, providing students with opportunities for archival research, dataset construction, and international collaboration. His lab leverages partnerships with European research centers for comparative historical analysis.