Sergey Kichko

Consumer Conformism

Sergey Kichko is investigating the impact of consumer conformism on product demand and product quality in markets with differentiated goods. Within a linear demand system framework with heterogeneity on both demand (consumers are heterogeneous in their tastes and degree of conformism) and supply (firms differ in their costs and production quality) sides, he is studying the impact of the conformism level of society on the demand for high-end and low quality firms as well as average product quality. When countries open up to trade, conformism seems to foster existing home biases.

During his visit to CESifo, Mr Kichko will work on his consumer conformism project as well as on a project dealing with welfare issues in multisectoral setting with endogenous product variety. His research interests are related to international trade as well as regional and urban economics. Together with Sergey Kokovin and EvgenyZhelobodko, he has developed a trade model with variable markups, showing that firms' pricing-to-market policy could be solely driven by the nature of preferences. They have also studied the impact of trade liberalisation on firms' sizes and profits in countries with different production factor structures.

Sergey Kichko is the Director of the Higher School of Economics (HSE) Center for Market Studies and Spatial Economics and an Associate Professor at Higher School of Economics (HSE) in St. Petersburg. He holds an MA in Engineering from Saint Petersburg State Technical University and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the North-Western Academy for Public Service, also in Saint Petersburg.