Economics Award 2002
The University of Navarra’s Faculty of Business and Economics has developed the Economics Award 2002 to highlight the relevance and creativity of applied economics when solving real world problems and improving the world´s standard of living.
High school students from Spain and abroad have been invited to participate in this Award. Students have been asked to work on a case study to demonstrate their understanding of the economic problems and challenges of a developing country. The country chosen for this year’s study is Côte d’Ivoire.
In the first phase of the Award, the students worked in teams (3-5 members each) on the case study. A dossier of information provided the necessary background information for them to handle three different tasks. The result of their work was limited in size to a submission of 4 typed pages.
Task one is a comparison of the main socio-economic indicators of three economies in different stages of economic development. In addition to Côte d’Ivoire, students examined the case of Mauritius, a model for successful economic development. Finally, Spain was the reference country, against which the situation of Côte d’Ivoire became clearer.
For task two, students should focus on Côte d’Ivoire and find out the strengths and weaknesses that might influence the country’s development. Again, the case of Mauritius could give some ideas about how to explore a young country’s competitive landscape. The students were invited to look at the importance of political factors (institutional and structural stability).
Finally, for task three, students place themselves in the role of the Head of Government of Côte d’Ivoire. They have to design a program of economic action for the next ten years and should think about the desired result in economic terms.
The first two tasks were mainly descriptive and analytical. Task three however, was a transfer of knowledge. It was aimed at exploring the students’ motivation, imagination and creativity in developing their proposals. Nevertheless, these had to stay in line with economic reasoning.
The timeframe has been as follows:
October 1st The contest will start when you receive the case study and the dossier of information
0ctober 30th Your students send in their solutions in a 4-page paper by this date.
Nov. 8th Three teams will be invited to the 2nd International Economics Forum. All student groups will receive feedback on their case study.
Nov. 22nd/ 23th The teams invited to the “2nd International Economics Forum” will present their results during the conference and compete for the Award.
Here is a link to the case study: AWARD_Case_study
The background material included:
- Country reports from the CIA 2002 World Factbook
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ - A case study on Mauritius, published by the World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/pubsbysubject_commoditiespricingandtrade.html - Table of Indicators
In the second phase, all participating groups are welcomed to take part in the II. International Economics Forum organised by the University of Navarra’s Faculty of Economics.
The three best teams will present their case study on the II. International Economics Forum. After the presentations, the Economics Award 2002 will be given to the team that presents the most viable solution.
The Economics Award 2002 aimed at highlighting the connection between theoretical analysis and practical work and projects in developing countries. Therefore, the University of Navarra will donate prize money to an investment project in a developing country, helping to foster development and prosperity.
The winning team, together with the University of Navarra, will select an appropriate project and be involved in the future follow-up and stewardship of this project. The winners are invited to maintain contact with the local project sponsor. By doing so, they can gain valuable insight in how economic aid translates into improving other people’s living conditions.
In order to select a project we thought the following requirements would be necessary:
- By preference, the project should be located in the educational sector, as we are looking forward to build a lasting relationship between the recipient and the donator, in our case the winning school of the Economics Award 2002
- Target a group oriented project, so that a direct link to the recipient organisation will be easy to establish
- Neither the University of Navarra nor the participating schools can assume the role of a development agency. Hence, we only posses restricted means to evaluate a project’s credibility and reputation with regards to the use of the donated money. For that, we were grateful for the help and recommendation we received from the institutions that participated in the II. International Economics Forum
Finally we were able to chose one specific project that seems to fulfils the requirements:
The GTZ supported program “Fomento de la Educación Básica en Lempira e Intibucá” (FEBLI) in Honduras.
