GENESEO, N.Y. - A team of students from Geneseo competed in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2006 College Fed Challenge in November and placed second in the competition.
The team won a prize of $3,000, and also won a total of $7,000 for the College's School of Business.
The team was made up of senior economics major Sergey Zinger, senior political science major Mohammed Partapurwala, senior economics major Jared Strohl, senior mathematics major Jenny Syverud, senior international relations major Sean Cogliardi, junior economics major Jillian Ryan, junior economics major Kale Smimmo, senior economics major AJ Hameline, and junior physics major Greg Kaleka. The group also included team advisors Leonie L. Stone, assistant professor of economics, and Christopher Annala, associate professor of economics.
Geneseo has participated in the challenge in New York City for four years, placing close second behind Northwestern University of Chicago last year in the national championship before the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Prior to that, the College had finished second in the competition's second year, and third in the first year.
According to a press release from the Geneseo Office of Communications and Publications, The College Fed Challenge is designed to help business, finance and economics undergraduates become more knowledgeable about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the decision-making process of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's monetary policy-setting group. During the competition, teams of students engage in mock discussions of the Federal Open Market Committee. The teams make a recommendation about whether to change short-term interest rates and why, just as the real FOMC does, and must support their analysis and arguments.