LUSEM was represented by a team of four: two first-year PhD students in Economics, Christina Maschmann and Tilman Bretschneider, as well as two master’s students Ida Haggren and Benjámin Olivér Maday who are currently embracing their final months in Economics, and Data Analytics and Business Economics, respectively. 

What case did you solve?

Tilman: "The case this year was on “Causal Effects in Education” exploiting data from PISA. In the first round, we were required to empirically find the school starting rule for several OECD countries and afterwards, to compare the test scores in mathematics and science of students who were born just below and just above this identified threshold."

Ida: "We perceived this first case as a straightforward assignment with a clear direction." 

Christina: "In the final round, we had to become more creative as the research question became generic. More specifically, we were free to empirically evaluate any educational policy of our choice. Here, we investigated the effects of on-the-job teacher training on students’ standardized test scores."

What did you think of the case of this year’s game?

Christina: "It was a very interesting case and our studies at LUSEM have prepared us well for this assignment. Especially being able to learn from influential researchers about credible identification techniques in (applied) microeconometrics and to think critically about the research question was one major driver of our success." 

Ida: "At this point, a huge shout-out to Jan Bietenbeck who was a supervisor and/or lecturer to most of us. We got to know the handy identification approach for the second case but also the current economic literature on education by having him as a lecturer. This and the opportunity to write two master theses plus a lot of reports during our studies facilitated the first place in the competition."

What do you think made you a good team?

Tilman: "Definitely our strong communication and respect for each team member! We were quite ambitious when we entered the game, but we wanted to have fun and a great experience as a team in the first place. Although we have never worked together before, it worked out very well." 

Benjámin: "Everybody was an important piece of the puzzle to create the big picture." 

Any further comments or thoughts from your experiences of the Econometric Game 2024?

Christina: "Even if this was a competition and occasionally very stressful, it was a good vibe between the different teams, and everyone was friendly."