Economics debate team take first place at national competition

three student winners of the university debate competitionThree Economics students have won first place at The Economics Debate, an inter-university  debating competition involving ten universities.

Pravin, Noah and Fintan, final-year BSc Economics and Politics, and Economics and Philosophy student’s stormed ahead in the annual university debating competition to take the final title.

The event, organised by UCL, Oxera Consulting, FTI Consulting, and The Economist Intelligence Unit was held in London earlier this month.

Supported by the University of Bristol EFM Society, the team also attended the quarter and semi-finals in London earlier this year, defeating LSE in the quarter finals and Surrey in the semi finals. The final show-down saw the University of Bristol champions defeat Cambridge and Bath for the title, with Pravin awarded the prize of Best Speaker (a prize awarded on the basis of the quarterfinals, with all teams present at this stage).

The winners were rewarded with a £300 cash prize, a fast track in the Summer Internship application at Oxera Consulting, a mentorship from FTI Consulting, and an insight day at The Economist.

Speaking after their win, Pravin, Noah and Fintan explained:

“We are grateful for the EFM Society for giving us the opportunity to take part, and supporting us during the tournament. We feel that studying Economics at Bristol has given us the tools to apply economic theories to complex topics well, which we had to do during the debate. As we are all joint honours students, we also feel that we were able to analyse how economics intersects with other important political and social factors.”

The two motions the Economics team debated in the final were:

1. This house believes that developing companies should acquire, on the open market, large stakes in major publicly-traded global corporations.

2. This house believes credit cards should only be available to people with incomes above the national average.

EFM Society

The EFM Society is the University’s largest Academic society for Economics, Finance and Management students, providing a range of social, sports, academic and career based events.