Lang Commerce students faced some tough competition this past weekend at the Governor’s Challenge, a national student competition in which teams take on the role of advisor to the Bank’s Governing Council.

Lang was one of five Universities to reach the finals, marking the first time the School made it to the finals. In this final round of competition, teams gave a virtual presentation on the economic outlook for Canada and made a monetary policy recommendation to a panel of senior central bank officials.

Congratulations to Commerce students Jenna Rolland-Mills, Hanno Friedrich, Caileigh Levely-Connolly, and Evan Turgeon and a thank you to Josh Vito and Morgan Goodwin for their back-up and support in developing the presentation.

In November, students provided analysis and forecasts on developments in the economy. They then presented a monetary policy recommendation to keep inflation low and stable, in line with the Bank’s inflation target of 2 per cent. The judges evaluated teams on the substance of their analysis, the quality of their presentation and evidence of strong teamwork. The team developed an analysis of the Canadian economy based on material that they'd learned in their undergraduate macroeconomic theory courses and used it to tackle a real-world policy problem - what kind of monetary policy measures should the Bank follow over the next several quarters.

Professor David Prescott initiated Lang’s involvement in this competition, and this is the fifth time we have entered a team. The current faculty advisor to Lang's BoC Govenor's Challenge Team is Professor Emeritus Brian Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson is also the instructor for two courses offered to help prepare the team for this competion: ECON*3900 (S22) and ECON*4900 (F22).