Alex Coad

Alex Coad serves as Professor at Waseda Business School, where he has established himself as a highly influential researcher in firm growth, entrepreneurship, and innovation policy. After earning his joint PhD from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Sant'Anna School in Pisa, he built an impressive academic career across multiple institutions including the Max Planck Institute, Aalborg University, SPRU at University of Sussex, and CENTRUM Graduate Business School, before joining Waseda University. His research has garnered over 14,000 citations, with landmark publications including "The Growth of Firms: A Survey of Theories and Empirical Evidence" and highly-cited papers on innovation and firm growth in high-tech sectors. As editor of prestigious journals Research Policy and Small Business Economics, he shapes academic discourse in his field. His work spans theoretical and empirical analyses of firm growth, entrepreneurship dynamics, and innovation policy, with particular expertise in applied econometrics and quantitative methods. Beyond academia, he has consulted for major international organizations including the World Bank, OECD, and European Commission, bridging theoretical research with practical policy applications. In 2016, his contributions were recognized with the Nelson Prize at UC Berkeley, cementing his position as a leading voice in business and innovation economics.