The Team Including METU Economics Department Students Ranked 1st at the Young Economic Policy Designers Workshop

This year’s YEP-D (Young Economic Policy Designers) Workshop was held online on 18-19 July 2020.

YEP-D is a 36-hour marathon of economic policymaking simulation, which aims to provide its participants insights and real time policymaking experience through scenarios that address a different type of economic problem in each module (https://www.yepdworkshop.com/post-yepd-2019/welcome-to-yep-d-workshop-2020).

Among applicants from junior, senior and graduate students from different universities, 35 participants were selected by the YEP-D organizing committee.

The workshop continued uninterrupted for 36 hours (excluding only one 4 hours sleep break). The participants in this year’s workshop were divided into five groups. Each group was tasked with evaluating one country among five countries: Chile, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Romania, and Bangladesh.

The teams were asked to evaluate five economic scenarios to their assigned country and asked to develop economic policies specific for that country.

During the 36-hours , the groups developed policies using different economic theories and applications, and offered solutions to the scenario-specific problems about growth, fiscal budget and financial developments for the assigned country, firm dynamics, and monetary and fiscal policies.

The jury members scored each team’s work, and as a result, the Chile team, including METU Economics Department junior student Ecem Yargici, team mentored by METU Economics Department graduate student Cigdem Ekiz, and recent graduate Caner Toker, ranked first with the highest score.

Altuğ Aydemir, a 2020 alumni, was honored to be one of the 12 economists shortlisted as “Highly Commended Entrants”

Altuğ Aydemir, a 2020 alum of our University’s Department of Economics, was honored to be one of the 12 economists shortlisted as “Highly Commended Entrants” in “The Global Undergraduate Awards”. METU is a member of this prestigious international academic award program within the scope of the AdımODTÜ Undergraduate Research Project. Entrants whose paper or project ranked in the top 10% of submissions to their category, are shortlisted as Highly Commended Entrants.

Aydemir, with his article titled “MODERN BUBBLE: Effects of Monetary Policies After the 2008 Crisis on US Stock Markets and Financial Flows of Developing Countries”, succeeded in becoming the first Turkish student to be on the list in the field of Economics in the competition selected by 506 juries out of 50 countries, 380 universities, 25 categories, and 4148 applications. Aydemir wrote his article under the advisorship of Assoc.Prof. Esma Gaygısız Lajunen from Economics Department.