The Economics Summit

14 March 2012

On Wednesday 14 March, students from across the University attended The Economics Summit, one of biggest events of the academic year. The free event was organised by the TeamBEST Economics Society, and it offered a range of activities and presentations to help students with their studies and career development.

This year’s event was sponsored by PwC and Cambridge Econometrics.

The day began with two presentations, Discover Finance and Placements. The Discover Finance presentation focused what a career in finance is like and how to be successful, with particular focus on the challenges facing women. Becky Heywood, a first year economist commented: “The talk was very informative of the importance of women at PwC.”

The Placements presentation gave first year students a chance to learn about the options they have for an industrial placement (that can be taken in the third year of undergraduate study) with PwC and Cambridge Econometrics. Stephen Lee, a first year economist attended the session, commenting: “Jon Stenning gave a very informative talk on the work that takes place at Cambridge Econometrics …. I will take Cambridge Econometrics very seriously as a placement destination early next year.”

Following the morning’s events, TeamBEST provided a free buffet lunch in Wessex Restaurant for all students and speakers involved (it didn’t take long for all the food to be eaten!).

In the afternoon there was a presentation from the headline speaker, Martin Weale from the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). His presentation detailed the MPC’s task of ‘ Controlling Inflation’. Paul Goodstadt, a second year economist commented: “Listening to and having a conversation with a member of the Monetary Policy Committee was truly inspirational.”

This was followed by a very entertaining discussion on ‘Is Happiness the Future?’ led by Chris Snowdon from the Institute of Economic Affairs. Alexi Kirilenko, a second year economist attended the talk, commenting: “Chris Snowdon certainly knew how to entertain the crowd while raising questions on the pragmatism of David Cameron's 'Happiness Survey''

Jon Stenning (Cambridge Econometrics) said the following about the event: “It was great to see the students take such a keen interest in the various facets of economics. I found the afternoon talks very interesting; some of the issues discussed by Martin Weale were very relevant to understanding of the UK economy.”

Courtney Thompson a second year economist commented: “TeamBEST did it again!”

TEAMBest would like to thank PwC and Cambridge Econometrics, as well as Martin Weale and Chris Snowdon for their support with this event.

Further information

For further information about the event or TeamBEST, please contact: Lewis Vincent | email: lrv21@bath.ac.uk