Brandeis International Business School

A team from Brandeis International Business School finished first in the annual Crisis Game, an annual inter-school economics competition designed and organized by the Brandeis chapter of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE).

This year’s event featured teams from Babson College and the University of Cincinnati as well as two from Brandeis. In the Crisis Game scenario, an economic crisis hits a hypothetical country, and participants have to propose solutions that are judged by a panel of experts.

Catherine Mann, a former Brandeis IBS professor and NABE club advisor (now global chief economist at Citi) returned to campus as one of the judges. Also on the panel were:

• Chris Christopher, executive director, U.S. macroeconomics and global economics at IHS Markit
• Lisa Emsbo-Mattingly, director of research, global asset allocation at Fidelity and 2015-16 NABE president
• David Katsnelson, MBA’09, chief economist at Lyste Corp.
• Olaf Unteroberdoerster, PhD ’98, division chief at the International Monetary Fund

As short-term measures, the first-place Brandeis team proposed that “bad banks” should roll over assets to government-sponsored entities to stimulate lending and control the money supply. In the longer term, they recommended a focus on unemployment by investing in high tech to introduce new skills into the workforce, as well as efforts to increase tourism. Team members were Danni Hao, Stephen Zoulalian and Zehuan (Larry) Liu (all MA’18), and Uros Randelovic ’18, who is majoring in economics, computer science and business.

The other Brandeis team, which finished fourth, proposed a short-run stabilization plan to stimulate economic growth by spurring spending and bolster confidence. They advocated boosting competitiveness, attracting foreign investment and improving the country’s employment structure as longer-term measures. Team members were May (Wanmei) Ding, MSF ’18, and Fei Lu, Xiaojun Sheng and Yuzhou Liu (all MA’19).

“I thought you guys did a great job. This is real stuff—this really happens,” Emsbo-Mattingly said.