2016 Dorian Fisher Memorial Prize
The winner of the Dorian Fisher Memorial Prize Essay Competition was Cameron Logan, of Royal Grammar School High Wycombe with an essay answering the question “Recently the World Bank revealed that the proportion of the world’s population living on less than $1.25 a day had fallen below 10%. How and why did this happen?”. 3 runners up included Ibrahim Abdu of the Judd School for the essay “Why should behavioural economics lead us to be sceptical about both some mainstream economics and calls for larger government?”, and Jermaine Nsubuga of the Latymer School and Linya Peng of Stephen Perse School, Cambridge. They both answered the question “In the light of several countries now having negative nominal interest rates, can monetary policy have any real-world macroeconomic effects and what might they be?”.
Royal Economic Society Prize 2016
Each year this award is given to the author of the best non-solicited paper published in The Economic Journal. The 2016 Royal Economic Society Prize was awarded to Miaojie Yu of Peking University, for his explanation of how China’s openness to processing trade has been responsible for a huge amount of its economic growth.
RES Young Economist Essay Competition 2016
A number of fantastic responses were made to this years 6 topics:
1. “Allowing more immigration of refugees would be good both for refugees and for the economies they come to.” Discuss.
2. “Low interest rates penalise the thrifty, so the sooner the Bank of England raises interest rates the better.” Discuss.
3. Should the government compensate households and businesses that get flooded out?
4. Further support is needed for first-time buyers in order to tackle the present unaffordability of housing. Do you agree?
5. Does rising inequality warrant the imposition of higher income and inheritance taxes on the rich?
6. Should internet companies like Uber and Airbnb be regulated?
Student Challenge 2012
In the Student Challenge 2012 we once again had varied and creative responses to our question “How would you use economics to solve one of these issues: poverty; climate change; or structural unemployment.”
Student Challenge 2011
Some very creative responses – not just essays – to our question “Why Study Economics @ University?”.
Student Challenge 2010
Three winning students explain how their economics degree is preparing them for life.
Student Essay Competition 2009
Three winning essays discuss how to make difficult economics easier to learn.