Northwestern Wins Regional Fed Challenge Competition

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University captured first place at the Regional College Federal Reserve Bank Challenge this week and moves on to the National Fed Challenge. The University is the reigning national champion of the contest designed to increase understanding of U.S. macroeconomic policy and finance.

Northwestern’s Fed Challenge team of four juniors and one senior will defend their championship title against Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Pace University Monday (Dec. 2) at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.

The regional competition involved two rounds in which teams from Northwestern, University of Chicago, University of Michigan and 11 other Midwest institutions of higher education were asked to discuss the state of the economy and propose Federal Reserve responses to improve it. Each team also took questions from a panel of Federal Reserve economists.

Northwestern has won the annual national competition four times.

2013 Northwestern team members are:

• Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences senior Kyle Isaacson from Glen Ellyn, Ill., who is studying economics, mathematics and mathematical methods in the social sciences and working on a Kellogg certificate in financial economics
• McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science junior Nikhil Byanna from Schaumburg, Ill., who is studying industrial engineering, economics and mathematical methods in the social sciences and working on a Kellogg certificate in financial economics
• Weinberg junior Yuxuan Chen from Beijing, China, who is studying economics, mathematics and mathematical methods in the social sciences and working on a Kellogg certificate in financial economics
• Weinberg junior Jonathan Cohen, from Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., who is studying economics, mathematics, mathematical methods in the social sciences and working on a Kellogg certificate in financial economics
• Weinberg junior Ranjodh Singh, from Scarsdale, N.Y., who is studying economics and mathematical methods in the social sciences and working on a Kellogg certificate in managerial economics.
• The team’s presentation and data were prepared with the help of research assistants Rachel Boroditsky, Sameer Datla, Garrett Peterson, Ashvin Rai and Alexander You. Mark Witte is team faculty adviser. The team benefited from meetings with Northwestern economists Arvind Krishnamurthy, Robert Gordon and Richard Walker.

Judges for the Dec. 2 national championship will be Jeremy Stein, member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; Jamie McAndrews, director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and John Weinberg, director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

The Northwestern team’s trip to Washington is supported by a generous grant from the Wolf Family. Dan Wolf was captain of Northwestern’s 2010 Fed Challenge team.