Pavel Kocourek

Pavel Kocourek is a postdoc at CERGE-EI in Prague since he graduated from a PhD in economics at New York University (NYU) in 2019. Prior to that he studied a Master degree in Applied Mathematics in Taiwan during which he published several papers in Nonlinear Analysis and Fixed Point Theory.

Pavel's success in the International Mathematical Olympiad (bronze medal in 2003 and silver medal in 2005) inspired him to study Applied Mathematics at both West Bohemian University (Czech Republic) and later at National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan). While in Taiwan, he met a professor of Economics, who spontaneously hired him as a research assistant on a macroeconomic research project for the Taiwan government, in order to get help with programming in Matlab. This experience triggered Pavel's interest in studying Economics as a way to apply Mathematics and getting a better understanding of what he saw when hitchhiking and backpacking in different parts of the world. So he continued by studying a one year Master degree in Specialized Macroeconomic Analysis at Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (GSE), and consequently a PhD at New York University (NYU), where his interest shifted towards Microeconomic Theory.

His PhD thesis studies the strategic situations in which two firms compete in patenting. The principal question of the study is whether a firm making partial discovery towards the patent wants to keep its success private, or to reveal it and make the rival give up.

Pavel's research is purely theoretical, but he has applied his knowledge of economics creatively while living on boats and renting them on AirBnB in order to save on living in New York City, which allowed him to save, invest, and eventually to sail his sailboat across the Atlantic. Beyond his official research interest in strategic situations, he is interested in how economics and culture shapes the society in different countries and what determines the happiness of its citizens.

Research field: