Economist of the Year Competition

The Competition

Timely predictions with respect to the leading economic indicators by the participants of the Economist of the Year competition serve to guide macro-economic forecasts, the emerging stage of business cycles and investment decisions in South Africa. Also, the relevance of the Economist of the Year Competition is soundly routed in Goal 8 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aims to promote sustainable economic growth.

A total of 33 of South Africa’s top economists have entered the BMR Economist of the Year 2022 competition. The competition commenced in February 2022 when the panel of economists was requested to submit their first round of forecasts with respect to eight economic variables, namely:

• Real annual GDP growth rate for 2022.
• Real annual household expenditure growth rate for 2022.
• Average inflation rate for 2022.
• Average yield on long-term government bonds in Q4 2022.
• Average prime interest rate in Q4 2022.
• Average R/$ exchange rate in Q4 2022.
• Average Brent oil price in Q4 2022.

Official Launch Event

The official Launch Event was conducted on 26 May 2022.  During this event the following topics were presented and discussed:

• Why an Economist of the Year competition?
• What is changing under BMR management?
• Rules of the competition.
• The 2022 competition programme.
• BMR competition management team members.
• Procedures and adjudication process.
• Participants of the 2022 Economist of the Year Competition.

To download the recording of the event, click here
To download a copy of the presentations, click here
To download the introduction to the participants, click here