Harvard International Economics Essay Contest

Key dates

• Contest opens: Monday, October 26, 2026

• Submission deadline: Tuesday, January 5, 2027, 11:59 pm ET. Late entries are not accepted.

• Finalists and winners announced: early- to mid- March 2027

Who can enter

• High school students anywhere in the world

• Two divisions, based on your grade on the deadline (January 5, 2027)

  • Grades 9–10: students in their third- or fourth-to-last year of secondary school

  • Grades 11–12: students in their ultimate or penultimate year of secondary school, as well as students on a gap year, military service, or similar before university (please contact us with questions about eligibility)

• Homeschooled students are welcome

• Individual entries (no co-authors), one entry per student

Prompts for the 2026–27 contest

Choose one of the prompts below or write on an economics question of your own. Both divisions answer the same prompts. Use evidence from any country, including your own; the examples in each prompt should be treated as starting points rather than limits.

1. Artificial Intelligence
   Since late 2022, employment of US 22–25-year-olds in the jobs most exposed to AI has fallen about 13% compared with similar workers in less-exposed jobs. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in the UK rose to around 16% in early 2026, and India's biggest IT firms have almost stopped adding staff. Is AI the main reason young people are finding it harder to get a first job?

2. Globalization
   Canada, Australia and the UK, which each earn billions from international students, have recently capped their numbers or announced new charges on universities that enroll them. Will these limits leave the host countries better or worse off?

3. Digital economy
   India's UPI and Brazil's Pix, both built by public bodies, let people send money instantly by phone and each handle billions of payments a month. UPI is free for both users and shops, while Pix is free for individuals but charges businesses a small fee. Should a country's everyday payment system be free to use?

4. Environment
   Insurers have pulled back from wildfire- and storm-prone parts of California and Florida, and Australia and the UK run government-backed schemes that hold down premiums in cyclone and flood zones; in many other countries, few homes are insured at all. As climate risks grow, who should pay for damage to homes in the most dangerous places?

5. Inequality
   Mexico's minimum wage has more than doubled after inflation since 2016, while over half of Mexican workers have informal jobs outside the tax and labor system. To what extent do big minimum-wage increases reduce inequality in countries where many people work informally?

6. Your own question
   Pose and answer an economics question of your choosing.

Essay requirements

• Length: up to 1,500 words, counting footnotes, not counting references

• Format: a single PDF file (10 MB maximum size)

• Citations: any standard citation style, used consistently

• Anonymous judging: we ask that you do not put your name or school anywhere in the PDF. Judges will not see who wrote an essay.

Entry fees

• 25 USD if your school is inside the United States, 35 USD if your school is outside the United States

• Optional written feedback add-on for 20 USD, which includes rubric scores as well as short written comments from a judge, sent after final results are released

• Pay by card when you submit. If you cannot pay by card, or would like to request a fee waiver, please email us at competitions@thehuea.org instead of submitting the form.

• Each student submits their own form and payment. If your school would like to pay for a group (e.g., by invoice) please email us at competitions@thehuea.org.

• Entry fees are non-refundable except for duplicate or accidental payments.

Judging

• Every essay is anonymously read by trained judges and scored against a rubric covering analysis, creativity, research, and structure, each worth five points.

• The strongest essays go to a final judging panel. We intend to bring Harvard faculty or other economics professionals into final judging if possible. Past judges include 2016 Nobel laureate Oliver Hart.

• We never use AI to score essays.

Awards

In each division, we will recognize the following:

• 3 Winners (essay published on this website)

• 15 Finalists (recognized by name)

• 15 Highly Commended (recognized by name)

Award recipients' names and schools are published on this page, as well as winners' essays. Every award recipient will receive a digital certificate.

AI policy

You may use AI tools. We only ask that the ideas and arguments in your essay are your own, and that every source you used is cited.

How to enter

1. Choose one of the prompts above (or your own question) and write your essay

2. Save it as a PDF with no name or school in it.

3. Submit through the entry form and pay the entry fee (takes about 5 minutes)