Sergey G. Kokovin

Monopolistic Competition

Sergey Kokovin and his collaborators have proposed a model of monopolistic competition with additive preferences and variable marginal costs. Using the concept of "relative love for variety," they provide a full characterisation of the free-entry equilibrium. When the relative love for variety increases with individual consumption, the market generates pro-competitive effects. When it decreases, the market mimics anti-competitive behaviour. The constant elasticity of substitution is the only case in which all competitive effects are washed out.

Sergey Kokovin's research interests are in general equilibrium theory, game theory, political economy, price discrimination, monopolistic competition, international trade and economic geography theory.

Mr Kokovin maintains permanent research cooperation with Jean-Jacques Herings of Maastricht University in general equilibrium theory and game theory, with Babu Nahata of Louisville University for industrial organisation and pricing theory and with Jacques Thisse of the University Catholique de Leuven for monopolistic competition and economic geography.

While visiting Ifo, Mr Kokovin will discuss modelling and estimating the heterogeneous labour market under international trade. The question is which extensions of the Helpman-Itshoki-Redding model of double heterogeneity of economy look promising and what HSE in St. Petersburg could do together with Ifo in this direction. He also hopes for feedback on a new unpublished theoretical paper: "Spatial Monopolistic Competition: Hotelling Meets Chamberlin".

Mr Kokovin is Leading Researcher at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics (HSE) in St. Petersburg and part-time Associate Professor at Novosibirsk State University. He has also taught summer courses in game theory at Fukuoka University, Japan. He holds an MA in Mathematical Economics and a PhD in Mathematics in Economic Theory from Novosibirsk State University. Mr Kokovin has been responsible for several Economic Education and Research Consortium (EERC) research projects on federalism theory, pricing theory and on monopolistic competition.