It’s always a privilege to attend the Young Economist of the Year final – thank you for the invitation Discover Economics and the RES. A simply brilliant competition, with the support of KPMG and the Financial Times, offering talented students the opportunity to challenge themselves and develop their skill set.
This year, my feeling is that the finalists took things to a new level. I’ve been teaching Economics for more than 30 years but today have been introduced by students to ideas, research and models that I’d not encountered previously! Well done to all for rising to the challenge and producing such engaging, well-structured and well-argued presentations. I’ve picked out a few highlights from each:
Devorshi – John Hampden Grammar School – Should dynamic pricing be allowed for mega events? What stood out for me here was the depth of Devorshi’s research and his ability to synthesise many academic studies of the topic into a cogent argument. So impressive and an early indication of the extremely high standards for the day. At the age of 17, I wouldn’t have been able to produce anything of this quality and probably still couldn’t. A student on the path to big things, I think.
Isla, Beatrice, Evie, Sophie, Lauren – St. George’s School – Free trade creates winners and losers…..is it desirable? The analogy of free trade as a river with protectionism as a barrier to its flow made this presentation hugely engaging. I also liked the idea that those who are swept away by that flow – for example, local economies and communities left behind by structural change – need the support of government to adjust. I see members of this team as future economics journalists helping to make complex ideas accessible to all!
Aliya – Notting Hill and Ealing High School – How will AI affect long run growth in developed economies? Great research again in this presentation and fantastic use of different models of economic growth, including the Solow and Romer models, contrasting exogenous and endogenous models. Ultimately she addressed the issue that competition and diffusion of AI may ultimately be vital to its impact rather than concentration of its ownership. Well done, Aliya – just brilliant.
Fang, Wan, Guo, Lui and He – Wuhan Britain China School – Should dynamic pricing be allowed for mega events? Some great insights here, including potential benefits of dynamic pricing such as a more efficient distribution of tickets. However, the group also noted that ability to pay is not necessarily an indicator of value (utility) received by the ticket purchaser. They observed that selling tickets at a single price also comes with its problems, with a high chance that part of the value created by the event will be scalped by ticket touts. I was hooked from the introduction to the presentation, which included an amusing video to engage everyone.
Charlie – I’m really sorry that I didn’t manage to make a note of your school (insert hands over eyes emoji here!) Is a country truly wealthy if it has a high GDP but its citizens are unhappy? Spoiler alert…….Charlie concluded with a clear “no”! He argued that we need to be bolder in acknowledging that GDP is not the be all and end all. I thought this presentation was fantastic. Amongst its many elements, I enjoyed the citations of Aristotle, Smith, Layard and Helm but most of all I liked Charlie’s creation of his own welfare function for measuring true wealth, including measures of per capita GDP, distribution, happiness and environmental sustainability…..ambitious and impressive. Some thought-provoking policy recommendations too, including a wealth tax, proper environmental accounting and improvements to measurement of wellbeing.
Mayher – as with Charlie, I’m sorry that I didn’t get a note of your school! – Should billionaires exist in a well-functioning economy? Mayher looked at this topic first through the lens of theory, including the view of Ingrid Robeyns that there is an upper moral limit on how much wealth an individual should be able to hold and William Baumol that what matters is how wealth is created. Ultimately, she argued that it is the source of wealth that matters, not its scale/extent. She then offered us a different lens, looking at the issue through her own interrogation of datasets, showing that rising concentration of wealth does not necessarily slow growth. Ultimately, she recommended that we be mindful of the origins of any individual’s wealth, take measures to temper the power that comes with great wealth and act to protect democracy. Mayher got some really tough questions but responded to each assuredly and with maturity. This was apparent in her unprompted acknowledgement (even insistence) that car should be taken not to see the correlations shown by her data interrogation as the same as causation.
It’s customary on occasions such as this to say that everyone is a winner…….today, I think that’s very much the case and I wouldn’t have liked to be in the shoes of the judges. Well done Chris Jenkins, Tom Aldred, Soumaya Keynes and Isobel Dawson! I’ll not reveal here who took home the trophy just in case I pre-empt any posts from Discover Economics! I’ve enjoyed chatting to so many people during the course of the day. A final note….if I’ve misinterpreted or reported anything in any of the presentations, please accept my apologies……a huge amount to take in on a fantastic day all round.
