TCD team among finalists in the Econometric Game 2013
Trinity College Dublin was among the 10 finalists in the internationally respected Econometric Game 2013, hosted April 9-11 by the University of Amsterdam.
The team was composed of five postgraduate Economics students: Sara Mitchell (PhD), Benedetta Bianchi (PhD), Lionel Cottier (MSc), Nick Fitzpatrick (MSc), and Jason Somerville (MSc).
Over the course of three days, 30 top universities from across the world participated in the competition. During the Game, teams are asked to apply econometrics in unfamiliar fields, testing the abilities of participators to use their theoretical knowledge in a practical setting. This year's theme was “The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Economic Growth.”
On the first day, the competing teams were given a case study, which they had two days to resolve. The 10 teams with the best solutions continued to day three. On the third day, the finalists solved a second case and gave a presentation of their solution to a jury of qualified and independent professors.
In the first case study, teams had to evaluate the impact of an exogenous shock to government spending in the United States considering several alternate identification, specifications and estimation issues in the face of structural breaks.
In the second case study, the finalists were asked to create a forecast model for economic growth in Spain and provide projected growth rates for each of the four quarters in 2013. Teams had to decide how to proceed given high dimensional data with many variables and similar non-linearity issues.
The Game has historically focused on microeconometric issues, but the TCD team stood up to the macroeconometric challenge, making it through the first round and secured their place among the top 10. The TCD team gave a valiant effort in the second round, but in the end the University of Carlos III Madrid took the top award.
The Econometric Game is organized and hosted by the study association for Actuarial Science, Econometrics & Operational Research (VSAE) of the University of Amsterdam. For more information, please visit http://www.econometricgame.com/.