A Department of Economics team, mentored by Professor Jean-Paul Lam, is among five finalists for the Bank of Canada’s Governor’s Challenge.
The competition challenges students to analyze and forecast Canada’s economy and present a policy recommendation that would keep inflation low and stable. Students are judged on their analysis, presentation and teamwork. More than 140 participants from 25 Canadian universities took part in the competition this year.
The University of Waterloo team, including the presenters Tiago Figueiredo, Saad Khan, Matthew Robert and Eric Tichbourne and George Liu, Emily Li and Stephen Chen, are students in Lam’s ECON 487 class. They have been preparing in and out of class for hours every week (and sometimes weekend) since September.
"We are very happy to make the finals this year even though it was our first time participating,” said Lam.
The students worked extremely hard for this and I am very proud of their achievement.
The competition is a chance for students to work through the problems the Governing Council and staff at the Bank of Canada face every time they have to make a decision regarding the interest rate. Students “got a very good flavor for the type of work an economist would do at the Bank of Canada and in the finance industry,” said Lam. They also developed their analytical and presentation skills and had fun doing it.
The final round of presentations will take place at the end of January at the Bank of Canada’s head office in Ottawa. The University of Waterloo team will be competing against Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Toronto, McGill University and Université de Sherbrooke.
Lam believes his students have done so well because of their natural camaraderie, love of learning and dedication. “Hard work does pay off and they did work extremely hard.”