Harvard Fed Challenge Team wins second straight National Title

The Harvard University College Fed Challenge team won its second straight national championship on Wednesday, December 3, 2008.

The winning team consisted of team captain Colin J. Motley ’10, Troy C. Murrell ’09, Akeel Rangwala ’11, William C. Schaub ’11, and Anna Y. Zhang ’10. Stephanie H. Lo ’10 served as team president. The team was coached by Professor Benjamin Friedman.

In the first part of the competition, students had 20 minutes to present an analysis of the current U.S. economy, present a short-term forecast, and make a monetary policy recommendation. In the second part of the completion, three judges questioned the team about its proposal and tested the contestants’ understanding of general monetary policy. The team was scored based on knowledge of the Fed and its roles in developing and implementing monetary policy, responses to judge’s questions, quality of research, teamwork, presentation and style.

NYU took second place and Northwestern placed third in the competition.

For their efforts, the team will split $15,000 in scholarship funds provided by the Moody’s Foundation and the Harvard Economics Department will receive $10,000 from the Moody's Foundation.

For more information on the Harvard College Fed Challenge, please see their website at http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~fed/index.html.

Also, more information can be found in the Harvard Crimson article, “Students Defend Fed Challenge Title.”