November 7, 2014
On Friday, October 31, the Hamilton College Fed Challenge travel team visited the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to compete in the annual collegiate Fed Challenge. The competition requires a team of three to five participants to give a 15-minute presentation discussing the state of the American economy and concluding in a recommendation for monetary policy. Following the presentation, the team then enters a 15-minute question and answer portion, where the judges ask the team various questions about their presentation and general concepts of monetary policy. The team is then evaluated on the thoroughness of its presentation and the participants’ overall understanding of the current state of the economy and broad monetary policy concepts.
Hamilton’s Monetary Policy class, taught by Professor of Economics Ann Owen, participates in the competition every year. Five members serve as the travel team, who actually compete in the competition: Angelika Wieliki ’15, Conor Fox ’15, Brian Cameron ’15, Michael Akselrad ’15, and James Bryan ’16 but the other members of the class make up the equally as important support team. The support team (Sam Sherman ’15, Patrick Sen ’15, Sam Gonzalez-Gross ’15, Brooks Rozelle ’16, Chris Dudley ’15, Nick Ball ’16 and Ivy Akumu ’15) preps the travel team by asking questions in practice, but also critiquing the presentation and preparing the PowerPoint presentation that is given to judges.
“We have a great group of students this year, with everybody in the class playing an important role in developing the presentation and helping to prepare the team for the difficult Q&A portion of the competition,” Professor Owen said. “It is definitely a lot of fun to work with students who are motivated to learn as much as possible about economic policy.”
Hamilton’s conclusion for monetary policy varied slightly from what the actual Federal Open Market Committee decided in its actual meeting in October. The team maintained the interest rate but deleted the committee’s promise to markets to stay at its current rate for a considerable time. Instead, the Hamilton team replaced the clause with a list of indicators that, in the mock world of the competition, would be monitored in the future in order to determine when to raise the interest rate.
The format for the presentation was a mock Federal Open Market Committee meeting, during which members of our team debated the issues, rather than simply presenting or discussing them. The plan was successful in the first round, as the team won its division of four teams and scored a 19/20 in the process.
The Hamilton team will go back to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Nov. 14 to the compete against two other team in the regional semi-final. If they win, the Hamilton participants will compete in the regional final later that day.
Winning the regional final will send the team to Washington D.C. to compete for in the national championship. Only three of the nine teams Hamilton has sent in the past have made it the semi-final, and none have qualified for nationals.
To prepare for the upcoming semi-final, the travel team is making some slight adjustments to the script and policy recommendation, while the support team is tirelessly researching economic information that could potentially come up in questions. The team is confident and motivated, with all participants feeling that they have a good shot to qualify for at least the regional finals.
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