During the Econometric Game, sometimes referred to as the Econometrics World Cup, Erasmus School of Economics students took third place among the thirty participating universities. The world’s best 120 econometrics students came together from 6 to 8 April in Amsterdam to tackle a formidable issue: care for the elderly and whether this has changed due to the economic crisis. Using a large data set, the participating teams explored which socioeconomic parameters influence the use of healthcare resources by the elderly in Europe.
In their analysis, students specifically looked at differences between countries and the effects of the economic crisis. The Harvard University team eventually emerged as the one most capable of analysing a massive amount of Big Data and extracting a solution that would improve care for the elderly in Europe. The fact that five teams from the Netherlands participated in the competition demonstrated the country’s proficiency in the field of econometrics. In 1969 Jan Tinbergen won the first Nobel Prize in Economics and was one of the founders of the field of econometrics. The Netherlands is also the only country where econometrics is offered as a stand-alone programme.