Win £500! ERC's annual Clash of the Titans economic forecasting competition offers cash prizes

It's not very often that students get the chance to win some money from using their economic knowledge but the Economics Research Council are offering £500 to the winner of the annual Clash of the Titans competition. Although the competition is open to all (teachers can enter) the last two years have been won by Sixth Form Economics students! Let's face it, with the economic uncertainty that exists in the UK over the coming months, economic forecasting is very much a level playing field at the moment.

The 'Titans' in the competition title are 3 renowned economists - Melanie Baker – Senior Economist at Royal London Asset Management, Prof. Jagjit Chadha – Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Dr Adrian Paul – Chief UK Economist at Goldman Sachs. They have made their own predictions for how UK GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, average earnings and the lowest value of sterling/euro will pan out over 4 quarters (starting with qtr 4, 2018). They are available here.

Entrants to the competition have to do the same. Calculations are made over the course of the competition time frame and the entrant whose predictions have been the closest is the winner.

The ERC are also offering an internship for the highest ranking student.

One great aspect of the competition is that a school can enter groups of students and the ERC will produce an ongoing league table (month-by-month) to allow groups from within a school to compare their predictions.

A lesson plan to introduce the competition is available here. The accompanying student worksheet is available here. A multiple-student school entry form is available here.

Anyone wishing to enter by themselves can do so online.

Good luck!