As the blog hangs up its stocking and takes a well-earned festive break, we leave you with our annual Christmas brain-teaser. Perhaps the greatest only central bank themed festive quiz on the planet. Have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and we’ll see you in January…
1. (Forecasting) Which MPC member famously quipped “We should recognise that the true meaning of the Christmas story will not be revealed until Easter”
a) Mervyn King
b) Andy Haldane
c) Willem Buiter
d) Rachel Lomax
2. (Monetary Economics) “Good King Wenceslas” of Christmas Carol fame has also featured on the coinage of which country?
a) Poland
b) Austria
c) Czech Republic
d) Hungary
3. (Central Bank History) Which Central Bank was founded a couple of days before Christmas 1913?
a) The Bank of Japan
b) The Federal Reserve
c) The Reserve Bank of Australia
d) The Swiss National Bank
4. (Applied Econometrics) According to Braun and Evans’ seminal paper “Seasonal Solow Residuals and Christmas”, by how much does Christmas increase measured productivity in the fourth quarter of each year?
a) 2%
b) 4%
c) 8%
d) 16%
5. (Macroeconomics) Which country is the EU’s biggest producer of turkey meat?
a) Germany
b) United Kingdom
c) France
d) Poland
6. (Welfare Economics) Gift cards can create deadweight losses because the receiver prefers to shop somewhere other than the place on the gift card. According to Jennifer Pate Offenberg’s seminal paper, how big is this loss as percentage of the gift given?
a) 5%
b) 10%
c) 15%
d) 20%
7. (Payment systems) Travellers’ cheques were launched in the UK by the London Credit Exchange Company on New Year’s day of which year?
a) 1772
b) 1822
c) 1872
d) 1922
8. (International Financial System) Central bankers in time zones ahead of GMT get to celebrate Christmas earlier than us at the Bank of England. Which of these central banks will be the very first to see Christmas Day?
a) Central Bank of Samoa
b) Reserve Bank of Fiji
c) Central Bank of the Solomon Islands
d) Reserve Bank of Vanuatu
9. (Microeconomics) According to the Christmas Price Index, which set of items in the song “12 days of Christmas” is the most expensive?
a) Seven swans-a-swimming
b) Five gold rings
c) Two turtle doves
d) A partridge in a pear tree
10. (Banknotes) Which currency features the North Pole on one of its banknotes?
a) Icelandic Kronor
b) Canadian Dollar
c) Russian Rouble
d) Norwegian Krone
wow these are hard! Cant we just have a constrained optimisation problem? I really appreciate the gift card one though-unless you use wish lists, giving gifts is highly inefficient! Unless people can sell them afterwards on Ebay (at full price) and buy what they really want.
Thank you for the quiz, as always. Of course I was pleased to see a reference to the Good King Wenceslas (so this one was easy), but I was thrilled to wait for the answer in the Price Index question – luckily there were no black swans!
After almost getting my degree in economics this quizz made me feel like a freshman! A happy new year to you!