Judging the International Economics Olympiad

I was invited to serve as a judge and debate moderator for the International Economics Olympiad, a global competition that brings together high-performing secondary school students to engage with applied economic challenges. You can read more about the Olympiad here: https://www.econolympiad.org/about.

My role focused on evaluating analytical essays centred on economic resilience, long-term development strategy, and the economic implications of artificial intelligence. These are not abstract classroom exercises.

They mirror the kinds of structural questions governments and institutions are grappling with today: how economies adapt to technological change, how institutions manage volatility, and how policy choices shape long-run prosperity.

The standard was impressive. Many participants demonstrated a level of conceptual clarity and policy awareness that would not look out of place in undergraduate or even early postgraduate work. What mattered most in the assessment was not surface sophistication, but the strength of reasoning, internal coherence, and the realism of proposed interventions.

Following the written round, I moderated the global debate stage, ensuring that arguments were tested rigorously and that discussion remained grounded in economic logic rather than rhetoric. Working alongside fellow judges drawn from academic and competitive economics backgrounds, the process demanded clear evaluative judgement and the ability to distinguish robust analysis from persuasive but fragile argumentation.

While this engagement sits within an educational context, it reflects the same core capabilities I bring to advisory work: assessing the strength of economic reasoning, stress-testing policy proposals, and maintaining analytical discipline under scrutiny. For organisations operating in uncertain and fast-moving environments, those capabilities are not optional. They are essential.