Students of the New Economic School took part in the World Championship of Econometrics ‘The Econometric Game 2021’. The competition is organized annually by the University of Amsterdam and brings together teams from 30 universities from across the world. This year, due to the anti-COVID restrictions it was held online.
Participants were required to identify how popularity of Airbnb services in Amsterdam is related to the growth of prices in the real estate market. The teams were given two days to study data and to offer a solution based on economic modelling.
The NES team included students of the Master of Arts in Economics program: Iakov Grigoryev (MAE'2021), Artemii Korolkov (MAE'2021), Evgenii Stanchin (MAE'2021), and team captain Roman Solntsev (MAE'2021). The team's mentor, NES Professor of Economics Valery Charnavoki, helped them prepare for the championship both as an expert in the field and as a prize-winner of the Econometric Game 2007/2008 with the University Carlos III of Madrid team.
After the first day of the championship, the NES team was ranked among the top ten — for the first time since 2017. It competed with the teams from the University of Cambridge, the University of Antwerp, Aarhus University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and other leading universities.
"Despite the fact that no one in our team specialized in spatial econometrics, we managed to reach the final. We were lucky to get a successful combination of skills: two students in the team were engaged in programming in Python and QGIS, and two others were working on the methodology and literature. We have spent a lot of time preparing for the contest. The day before the start of the championship, when the topic was announced, we discussed with Valery Charnavoki the possible approaches to the problem. We liked the result of our work on the second day even more than on the first one, even though we did not take the prize. I think NES has a good chance to make it to the final next year as well", said Roman Solntsev, NES team leader.
Students of the Lund University were announced winners of the сhampionship this year.
We would like to thank the team mentor, congratulate the NES team and wish them success in future!