Earlier this week, the first issue of the upper school’s student-run economics magazine, “Equilibrium,” was published at Harker’s Issuu site. The 64-page magazine contains stories on problems facing pensioners in China, how COVID-19 has affected how people consume media and the economic principles demonstrated in the card game “Magic: The Gathering” and Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing” video game.

“At the end of the sophomore year, we were looking into ways to expand the reach of economics at Harker,” said rising senior Arushi Saxena, who co-edited and co-designed “Equilibrium” with fellow rising senior Michelle Si. “We were aware of the several classes offered and saw the interest that classes such as Game Theory and AP Economics drew, but realized that there was a lack of opportunities for students to delve further into the field.” The magazine provided an opportunity for students to investigate topics in economics they found personally interesting. “Our main purpose was to inspire economic curiosity and scholarship, and, as we say in our mission statement, we hope to illuminate the importance of economics in the modern world by inspiring young thinkers to explore beyond the borders of the classroom and advance their interest in this field,” Saxena said.

Contributions to the magazine were a combination of student work that had been done in class and original pieces. In the future, Saxena said, the magazine’s creators “hope to include more diverse content, including interviews with economists, features for some of our speakers and economics book recommendations from Harker teachers. We would love to include the general student body more in economics discussions, so we look forward to sending out polls and surveys as well!”