Young Economist of the Year 2019 is a Rockwell College student

It was a near clean sweep of the prizes for Tipperary’s Rockwell College at the Young Economist of the Year awards held in UCD on Thursday, May 2.

Sihoo Kim won the overall first prize and will represent Ireland in the international Economics Olympiad in St Petersburg in July.

Leah McGarry (Clerihan) and Padraic Clarke (Dualla) won the top fifth year award and will be first replacement if Sihoo cannot travel.

Third place overall also went to Vervara Artiuk (Russia) while Dylan Shaw (Littleton) got a silver medal in the Central Bank competition.

When reflecting on the multiple wins their teacher Pat Egan commented that “this is a very proud day for the college. Seeing the work as I did at first hand, they deserve their successes”.

Each project studied human behaviour from an economic context.

The winning project studied aspects of human behaviour from students running to avoid queues, New Year’s resolutions and the purchasing patterns of consumers. Sihoo concluded that consumers are more emotional than rational. Michael Doyle (deputy principal) spoke of the recent success of Rockwell students in this competition with Cathal Murphy (Rathronan) winning the award in 2017 for his essay entitled Quantative Easing does it work. The day however belongs to Sihoo who got a rapturous reception on his return to Rockwell College.

He has a meeting with Minister for Finance Pascal Donoghue scheduled to take place in Government Buildings on Thursday May 9th.

Sihoo’s success has caused a media storm in his native South Korea but he promises that his allegiances will not be in doubt for the 51 country Olympiad in St Petersburg in July.