Wolfson Economics Prize


The Wolfson Economics Prize is a £250,000 economics prize, the second largest economics prize in the world after Nobel, which is sponsored by Simon, Lord Wolfson, CEO of retailer Next plc and run in partnership with the think tank Policy Exchange. The Prize invites new thinking to address major economic policy issues that aren't already subject to significant public discourse. The Prize has run in 2012, 2014 and 2017.
The 2012 Prize was a contest for proposals on how the Eurozone could be safely dismantled. The contest ended on 5 July 2012, when the Capital Economics team, led by Roger Bootle, won the prize.
The 2014 Prize asked the question “How would you deliver a new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular?” It was won by David Rudlin of urban design consultancy, URBED.
The question for the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize was "How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?” It was won by Gergely Raccuja, a graduate transport planner at Amey.

2017 Prize

Launch

The 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize was launched on 13 October 2016 and looks at the future of roads. The full question was "How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?”

Scope of submissions

The organisers determined that submissions should focus on:
The panel of judges who decided the award is as follows:
Gergely Raccuja of Amey won the prize with the input of the RAC Foundation

2014 Prize

Launch

On 14 November 2013, Simon Wolfson announced that he intended to offer a new £250,000 Prize to the entrant who best answers the question "How would you deliver a new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular?" He had previously expressed an interest in this topic in an article in The Times on 4 December 2012, and garden cities had in 2012 been cited as credible responses to the UK's housing shortage by both David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the UK's Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister respectively.
The deadline for submissions to the 2014 Prize was Monday 3 March 2014. Entrants were asked to submit an essay on the topic of up to 10,000 words.

Panel of judges

The panel of judges who would decide on the award is as follows:
On 14 April, Simon Wolfson announced that there had been 279 entries to the 2014 competition. The finalists were announced on 4 June 2014 and were:
• Barton Willmore, led by James Gross. Barton Willmore is the UK’s largest independent planning led town-planning and design consultancy. Barton Willmore's entry sets out a ten-point plan for the delivery of a new garden city, arguing for the development of a cross-party consensus and the production of a National Spatial Plan to identify suitable locations for new garden cities. Garden City Mayors, heading up Garden City Commissions, would be appointed to champion garden cities and find specific locations for development.
• Chris Blundell FRICS FCIH, Director of Development & Regeneration at Golding Homes. Chris is a development professional with over 30 years’ experience and has entered in a personal capacity with the support of Golding Homes. His entry argues that a garden city should accommodate between 30,000 and 40,000 people and that its delivery should be led by Garden City Development Corporations.
• David Rudlin of URBED, with Nicholas Falk and input from Jon Rowland, Joe Ravetz and Peter Redman. URBED is an urban design and research practice. David’s entry argues for the near-doubling of an existing large town in line with garden city principles, to provide new housing for 150,000 people. The entry offers a proof of this ‘urban extension’ concept based on a fictional town called Uxcester.
• Shelter, the leading housing and homelessness charity, led by their Head of Policy Toby Lloyd. This entry proposes a new garden city on the Hoo Peninsula commencing with a settlement of up to 48,000 people The entry proposes a model designed to attract massive private investment into the provision of high quality homes, jobs, services and infrastructure. The delivery model prioritises speed and volume over profit margins, aims to acquire land at low cost and transfer valuable assets to a Community Trust for the long term. Local people would be offered unique opportunities to invest in the city, including through buying shares.
• Wei Yang & Partners in collaboration with Buro Happold Consulting Engineers, led by Pat Willoughby. Wei Yang & Partners is a London-based practice with an international portfolio of master planning, town planning, urban design and architectural projects. Dr Yang is also advising the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on its urbanization programme. Their entry argues that an ‘arc’ beyond the London Green Belt is the best location for the development of new garden cities; and that the Government should publish a New Garden Cities Strategy identifying broad ‘areas of search’ for suitable locations, with a 30-year timescale.

Winning Entry

The 2014 prize was announced on September 3, 2014, at an awards ceremony in London. The Winner was David Rudlin of URBED, assisted by Nicholas Falk and with input from Jon Rowland, Joe Ravetz and Peter Redman. His concept revolved around the expansion and "greening" of existing cities, in a way which did not disturb their existing centres or green spaces. The UK Government responded quickly. Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, stated "we are committed to protecting the green belt from development as an important protection against urban sprawl - today’s proposal from Lord Wolfson’s competition is not government policy and will not be taken up".

2012 Prize

Launch

On 18 October 2011, British businessman and Conservative life peer Simon Wolfson launched a contest that offered a £250,000 reward "for an individual to come up with a plan for how the euro could be safely dismantled."
The deadline was set on 31 January 2012.
Wolfson, at the launch, stated:
There is now a real possibility that political or economic pressure may force one or more states to leave the euro. If this process is mismanaged it could threaten European savings, employment and the stability of the international banking system.
This prize aims to ensure that high quality economic thought is given to how the euro might be restructured into more stable currencies.
Consideration will need to be given to what a post-euro eurozone would look like, how transition could be achieved and how the interests of employment, savers, and debtors would be balanced. Importantly, careful consideration must also be given to managing the potential impact on the international banking system.

The contest was organised by Policy Exchange, the London-based British think tank. Policy Exchange has been described as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the Right". Policy Exchange describes itself as "an independent, non-partisan educational charity seeking free market and localist solutions to public policy questions."
Simon Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise, is chief executive of clothing retailer Next. He is the son of former Next chairman David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, also a Conservative life peer.

Scope of submissions

The organisers determined that submissions should focus on:
The panel of judges who would decide on the award was as follows:
Some of the world's top economists were among the participants with a total of 425 entries.
Among the entrants was 11-year-old Jurre Hermans from the Netherlands who, notably, likened Greek debt to a pizza. Hermans' plan suggested that Greeks should be incentivised to return euros for debt repayment and, if they did not, should be fined at least the equivalent of what they held back. Returned euros would form, according to Hermans, what he described as "a giant pizza of money, slices of which would be handed back to creditors".
Antal E. Fekete, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, proposed a return to the gold standard.
In his Daily Telegraph column, business journalist Jeremy Warner suggested that "there is no need for an award", since he has a "very simple plan": In any country that decided to leave the Eurozone, each euro would be swapped for one "new euro" plus units in the country's new currency in proportion to the country's share of eurozone GDP. For instance, if Greece were to leave, the euro would be split 97.5 percent "new euro" and 2.5 percent "new drachmas".
Capital Economics, in their entry, stated that a country contemplating leaving the euro would have to "keep its plans secret until the last minute," introduce capital controls, start "printing" a new currency only after formal exit, seek a large depreciation, default on its debts, recapitalise busted banks and seek close co-operation with remaining eurozone members. "Such a rebalancing of the economy away from reliance on net exports would be in the interests of the whole of the current membership of the eurozone, as well as countries outside it”.
The short list of finalists was:
On 5 July 2012, Policy Exchange announced that the winning entry was submitted by the team led by Roger Bootle from Macroeconomics research consultancy firm Capital Economics, titled Leaving the Euro: A Practical Guide.
The proposal recommended that member-states who want to exit should introduce a new currency and default on a large part of their debts. The net effect, the proposal claimed, would be "positive for growth and prosperity". It called for keeping the euro for small transactions and for a short period of time after the exit from the Eurozone, along with a strict regime of inflation-targeting and tough fiscal rules monitored by "independent experts".
The Roger Bootle/Capital Economics plan also suggested that "key officials" should meet "in secret" one month before the exit is publicly announced, and that Eurozone partners and international organisations should be informed "three days before".
Roger Bootle said, after the announcement, "if executed correctly, the pain of exit would relatively soon be replaced by a return to growth," something that would encourage other distressed states still in the currency zone to exit as well, adding
"The biggest danger of contagion will be if Greece makes a success of leaving the monetary union".