OLEEC
Ecuadorian Economics Olympiad
OLEEC

Training

Information on how to prepare for the IEO: rounds, tasks, and useful materials

Parts of the Competition

Financial Literacy

Open-ended and multiple-choice questions on theory and practice.

Economics

Open-ended and multiple-choice questions on theory and practice.

Business

Presentation of case-study solutions in English before the Jury.

Financial Literacy

Contestants will be assessed on a range of concepts, knowledge, financial instruments, financial institutions, financial skills, economic processes, crisis situations, and simulated real-life circumstances. They will need to demonstrate financial skills and knowledge, such as building a financial plan and choosing financial instruments suited to protecting and growing capital. Participants will be required to plan, make decisions, think critically, assess the profitability of their investments, and reach the stated goal.

The financial model used in the competition is universal, so no specialized knowledge of any particular country’s economy is required. Each contestant works toward their own individual result.

Some of the financial knowledge needed to take part in this section can be found among the following resources:

 

Economics

The Economics tasks (the first part of the contest) should test contestants’ understanding of basic economic concepts and models, their curiosity about the field, and their analytical skills. This section of the competition is individual.

The main recommended textbook for the Economics section is The Economy from the CORE Economics Education project. CORE (which stands for Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics) offers a modern way of teaching economics that is broadly accessible to students from any background and is available online at https://www.core-econ.org.

The recommended supplementary textbook for preparation is Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw (latest edition). It represents the more traditional approach to teaching introductory economics. Both textbooks are available in English; the Mankiw textbook is also translated into other languages, and the CORE textbook is also available in French. If these resources aren’t available to contestants, they may use other introductory-level economics textbooks.

Business

The business case solution consists of several parts. Below are the skills contestants need to acquire, which the jury will assess, related to those parts:

Analytical thinking: the ability to structurally approach the solution of a complex business problem, correctly breaking it down into streams (directions within which the problem’s solution can be found).

As a rule, the team should divide the case into a few large blocks, which are in turn broken down further, and so on down to the level of specific problems. A good structure follows the MECE principle (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) — that is, it covers every possible solution, but no individual stream overlaps with another.

Conceptual thinking: the ability to build correct hypotheses from the resulting structure developed through analysis. Here the team checks how the ideas respond to the required request and correctly address these or other problems facing the company; the team also makes sure these solutions are feasible and make business and common sense.

Quantitative thinking: no case can be solved without simple but quick calculations and more complex models that illustrate certain analyses.

Communication skills: the ability to properly structure a presentation and answer questions.

A presentation with instructions can be downloaded here.

Useful literature for case solving:

  • The Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto;
  • Crack the Case, David Ohrvall;
  • The Trusted Advisor, D. Maister, C. Green, R. Galford.

Useful literature for data analysis:

  • The McKinsey Way, Ethan Rasiel;
  • Strategic Management, Thompson Strickland;
  • The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge;
  • Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman;
  • Case in Point, Marc Cosentino;
  • BCG on Strategy, C. Stern, M. Deimler.

Useful literature for presentations:

  • Say It With Charts, Gene Zelazny;
  • Unfolding the Napkin, Dan Roam;
  • Visualize This, Nathan Yau;
  • The Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto;
  • Slide:ology, Nancy Duarte

Downloadable Materials

International Economics Olympiads

2018

Financial Literacy

Online simulation game for building personal financial plans.

2019

2020

2021

National Economics, Finance and Business Olympiad

2021

The table of downloadable materials may not be up to date. We strongly recommend checking additional information on how to prepare on the official IEO website: https://ecolymp.org/prepare