The Mont Pelerin Society's International 2022 Hayek Essay Contest has just announced the winners of their Friedrich A. Hayek Fellowships. They are as follows:
1st prize: Mitchell Palmer, New Zealand
2nd prize: Marcos Falcone, Argentina
3rd prize: Simón Maturana, Germany
A rising star in Kiwi economics, Mitchell Palmer, who was a top Scholar at Auckland Grammar School, has just won first prize. His essay recommends countries like NZ should not form European Union-type agreements with neighbors like Australia. He argues that NZ and Australia got it right when our single market was created - retaining regulatory power with our respective nation states and creating a rule of mutual recognition. Palmer says:
"Economic unions like the European Union undermine liberal objectives. They create inescapable monopoly regulators that resolve deadlocks by regulating more, rather than less. Even if they directly allow a reduction in trade barriers between more countries than mutual recognition treaties, they are not the only way to achieve such breadth. Simple free-trade agreements – which are likely easier to conclude outside of an economic union – could suffice, for instance. Thus, liberals should reject economic unions and proposals to give them more power. Instead, they should advocate for a return of power to the nation-state, together with a maintenance of mutual recognition and free trade".
We're expecting more good essays out of Palmer when he starts his undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford later in the year, not to mention the expectation of him running for President of the Oxford Union Debating Society, following in the steps of Boris Johnstone! No pressure. One of the most famous debates that ever happened there was with our own former PM David Lange on NZ's anti-nuclear stance.
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