John Locke Essay Competition · 2026 questions
John Locke Public Policy Essay Questions
Public Policy is new in 2026 and its questions are the most technical in the competition. The judges are asking whether you can do policy analysis: state an objective, a mechanism, the trade-off and the evidence.
The 2026 questions below are the official set. The 2027 questions are expected in late January 2027 and this page will carry them within 48 hours.
The 2026 Public Policy questions, one by one
Quoted verbatim from the John Locke Institute. For each: what the examiners are testing, where strong students lose marks, the argument lines that hold up over 2,000 words, and what to read before you write.
What it is really asking
The Stern-Nordhaus dispute: whether to discount the welfare of future people, and at what rate. It rewards a student who understands the Ramsey equation and can argue about its ethical parameter.
The trap
Answering with a number and no ethics, or ethics and no number. The question says "why", and the why is a mixture of both.
Lines of argument that can carry 2,000 words
- The Ramsey rule: r = δ + ηg. The pure time preference δ is the ethical choice; Stern sets it near zero, Nordhaus uses market rates. Explain what each implies for a policy that pays off in 2100.
- Uncertainty and declining rates: Weitzman shows that uncertainty about future growth pushes the long-run rate down; the UK Green Book already uses a declining schedule. That is a middle position with authority.
- Catastrophe changes the maths: fat-tailed climate risk makes expected-value analysis unstable, which is an argument for precaution rather than for any particular rate.
Read first
- The Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, Nicholas Stern, 2006 (chapter 2 and the postscript)
- A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, William Nordhaus, Journal of Economic Literature, 2007
- On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change, Martin Weitzman, Review of Economics and Statistics, 2009
What the judges reward in Public Policy
The official criteria are knowledge and understanding, competent use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force. In this category that means:
- 1A stated policy objective and an honest trade-off, with the losers named.
- 2Quantities where they exist: rates, uptake, costs.
- 3Theory from economics and political philosophy applied, not paraphrased.
- 4A design recommendation specific enough to be criticised.
No published winning essay yet
Public Policy was introduced in 2026, so the Institute has not yet published a winning essay in this category. The closest models are the published Economics, Politics-adjacent and Philosophy winners, which we take apart paragraph by paragraph in our guide to the published essays.
Past winning essays, analysedHow to prepare for the 2027 Public Policy questions before they are released
- 1
Learn to read a cost-benefit analysis and a policy evaluation; the UK Green Book and one Journal of Economic Perspectives symposium are enough.
- 2
For each question, write the trade-off in one sentence: what we buy, what we give up, who pays.
- 3
Choose the question where you can find one real evaluation with numbers.
- 4
Avoid advocacy language. The judges are policy academics and they read "must" and "clearly" as weakness.
John Locke Essay Competition prep for Public Policy
John Locke Basics
12 group sessions plus 6 hours of 1-on-1 mentorship, from question choice to a submission-ready draft. 38 of our 41 students were shortlisted in 2026.
Questions about the Public Policy category
More technical than any other category. The 2026 discount-rate question expects familiarity with the Ramsey rule and the Stern-Nordhaus debate; the vaccination question expects real uptake data. You do not need mathematics beyond a formula and its meaning, but you do need to have read the primary policy literature rather than commentary on it.
The other nine categories
John Locke guides
The complete guide
Eligibility, rules, dates, judging and prizes in one place.
John Locke Essay Competition prep
All four programmes, compared, with the 2026 results and the 2027 timeline.
Deadline and timeline 2027
Every date, confirmed or expected, on one page.
The interview after shortlisting
What the Institute says, what students report, how to prepare.
Past winning essays, analysed
The seven published prize essays, paragraph by paragraph.
Is it prestigious, and worth entering?
What a shortlist, commendation or prize is worth in admissions.
Free essay planner
Question deconstruction, argument map and self-audit sheet.
2027 dates and changes tracker
What is confirmed, what is expected, and every 2026 rule change.
The competition from Dubai and the UAE
How the calendar sits against UAE school terms and exam seasons.