Target 2.0 Competition

The Bank of England runs the Target 2.0 competition annually for A-Level students. Students are given access to a wealth of the latest data and statistics that the Bank of England has on the current state of the UK economy. The data includes the obvious such as unemployment, overall UK economic output, sales levels, house and oil prices etc, and also includes measurements of things like the actual money supply in terms of notes and coins in people’s pockets, prices businesses are paying at each stage of production for raw materials and staff, and the various fortunes of the UK’s main trading partners.

After analysing this information, students have to put themselves in the place of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and decide what the next Interest Rate decision of the Bank of England should be. This is then presented to judges from the Bank of England in front of the other competing schools from the area.

This year’s team had a strong PowerPoint that advocated a ‘wait and see’ approach to interest rates. Unfortunately at the event itself, there was some tough opposition and John Leggott from Scunthorpe took the honours.

The team was made up of Joe McKenna, Jack Holt, Tom Love and James Cook and the entire economics class attended the event in York.