2016 Young Economist Competition

The winners of the 2016 Young Economist of the Year competition were announced recently at a function held at the Naspers offices in Cape Town. Die competition is held annually, is sponsored by Die Burger and managed by the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University. First year economics students, in teams of two to four, must submit forecasts of economic indicators such as exchange rates, interest rates, gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation. The forecasts are then compared to official releases afterwards, and teams are awarded points for accuracy and motivations.

The the past number of years, the competition has been open to economics students at Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. This year, in addition, a team from the military academy at Saldanha (also part of Stellenbosch University) took part, doing extremely well. These students, O.M.L. Gogo, E.T. Mmasa and T.P. Mpinyane of the team MA18, won second place in the competition. The team in first place was Economisticated (Kay-Dee Adams and Ashley Williamson) from Stellenbosch University and third place was The Golden Rule (Musa Mtsweni, Nosipho Ngubane and Nolwazi Naledi Zungu) from UCT.