Harvard Wins 1st Place at College Fed Challenge 2007 National Championship

The Harvard University College Fed Challenge team won the national championship on Tuesday, November 28, 2007. The team consisted of Colin Motley, Troy Murrell, Akeel Rangwala, Charlie Schaub, and Scott Vautour with team manager Stephanie Lo. 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. The team then defended its view before a panel of professional economists. 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. The judges included Amy Medearis of the Delegation of the European Commission to the U.S., Richard Porter of the Federal Reserve Bank Chicago, and Charles Steindel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The team, coached by Prof. Benjamin Friedman of the Economics Department at Harvard University, competed against teams from Christopher Newport University, Nothwestern University and SUNY Geneseo.

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.