Friday 21 March 2014 Four upper sixth students from The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) aim to be on the money when they bid for the top prize in a national economics competition. The team is competing in the Bank of England and The Times Two Point Zero Interest Rate Challenge. They won the area final last month and will travel to the Bank of England on Friday 28 March to contest the national final. There they will play the role of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and present their recommendations regarding interest rates and quantitative easing to keep inflation at 2%. They must impress a panel including members of the real MPC, who will cross-examine them on the minutiae of their proposals. The team of Matthew Potts, Louis Walker, Joe Ball and Jacob Gibbs have already come through two rounds to reach the finals and the experience is helping them prepare for the big day. At stake is the opportunity of work experience at the Bank of England, as well as the prize money and trophy. Matthew said: “The competition is a great opportunity to look beyond A-level into real world economics. It’s been getting tougher with each round and the questions were more probing. We even faced a member of the MPC on the panel at the area final.” Louis said: “The feedback from each round has been very helpful, and we’re doing lots of reading to keep up to date – there was a significant change to forward guidance policy immediately before the last round so we had to change our presentation just the day before.” GSAL has a strong record in the competition – the school’s team won in 2007 and 2013 and were runners up in 2012. General Sixth Form News
