About
I’m a PhD candidate in Economic History at Lund University, defending in Spring 2026. I study how innovation emerges—and who gets to innovate.
My research builds large-scale patent and inventor microdata (390,000 French patents, 255,000 unique inventors, 1791–1900) to explain the gender patenting gap, trace how collaboration reshapes inventors’ careers, and measure the diffusion of ideas. I develop machine-learning pipelines—Computer Vision for handwritten archives, fine-tuned transformer models, and probabilistic record linkage—to transform historical records into analyzable data.
For more, see my research, talks, teaching, dissertation introduction, and CV.
Job Market Paper
What Happens When Inventors Collaborate? Evidence from 19th-Century French Patents
Merouani, Y. 2026. [Draft PDF]
Using text-based measures of novelty and influence and Sun–Abraham event studies on the full universe of French patents, I show that collaboration does not raise productivity or originality—but permanently diversifies inventors’ technological focus. Network analysis reveals that “structural holes” enable this boundary-crossing, with particularly strong effects for women inventors.
Forthcoming
Women Inventors: On the Origins of the Gender Patenting Gap
Merouani, Y. & Perrin, F. Forthcoming, Journal of Economic History. [Working paper version]
Selected Publications
Gender and the Long-Run Development Process: A Survey of the Literature.
Merouani, Y. & Perrin, F. 2022. European Review of Economic History, 26(4), 612–641. doi:10.1093/ereh/heac008
Myths and Biases: An Exploration of Women’s Historical Patenting Activities.
Merouani, Y. & Perrin, F. 2024. In C. Le Chapelain (ed.), Nineteenth Century Businesswomen, Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-56411-6_13
Surviving on the Island: Linking Firm Survival and Contextual Factors in a Peripheral Region.
Merouani, Y., Box, M., Larsson Segerlind, T. & Rytkönen, P. 2023. In M. Xheneti et al. (eds.), Contextual Embeddedness of Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, 12–31. doi:10.4337/9781035320684.00009