As the presentation date for the Fed Challenge of Oct 18^th approaches, competitors Sidney Le, Moa Clementson, and their eighth other teammates, are gearing up their preparations. The final product will be a 15-minute presentation where they share their analysis of the current state of the economy, forecast future trends, discuss risks the economy is facing, and ultimately, provide a monetary policy recommendation based on the information they have collected. After this, they must be prepared for a 15-minute Q&A session where judges from the Fed ask high level questions about their analysis. 

The group meets every Thursday with Professor Sicotte, where everyone participates in discussing the Fed’s most recent moves and the newest economic data releases. This is an environment unlike many group projects, where one or two people carry the weight, this is an all hands on deck effort. “This is different from a traditional group project, everyone is pulling their weight, everyone wants to contribute, and everyone wants to be here,” Sidney states. Moa adds “it is a very positive team environment, where everyone is both passionate and interested.”  

At the beginning of the challenge, all the preparation ahead seemed like a daunting task, but as everything has fallen into place, the anxiety surrounding the competition for Sidney and Moa has shifted to excitement. The group started their preparation by individually taking deep dives into the parts of the economy that interested them the most. This led to coverage on labor markets, inflation, wage growth, GDP, and other important economic indicators. Sidney described this as “a huge learning process, where I had so much to relearn,” but she added that the previous economics classes she had taken provided a very solid base for her to build her knowledge. Moa expressed that she is interested in going into public policy when she returns to Sweden, and how this process of finding and applying economic information will be an invaluable experience in her field. 

In addition to gaining a strong background in economic research, Sidney and Moa also felt that they were developing other essential skills. Sidney highlighted her development of presentation skills throughout the course, “every class, everyone presents their own findings to the group,” this is of course in addition to the final presentation. Moa added that “everyone is coming to their own conclusions about complicated information,” pointing to the strong development that the group is seeing with their critical thinking skills. 

When asked if they would recommend the Fed Challenge to others in the future, neither Moa nor Sidney hesitated, “definitely.”