Your role
As a Student Research Assistant Trainee or PhD Trainee you will support research projects by :
- solving and estimating frontier macro models;
- developing mathematical, statistical and econometric procedures for research projects;
- contributing to empirical analyses and analytical projects;
- constructing and maintaining monetary, financial and economic databases;
- working with a broad range of unique confidential datasets, macroeconomic and microeconomic data, and financial, supervisory and intraday market data;
- establishing and maintaining cross-sectional, time-series and panel datasets.
Depending on your areas of expertise, your work may also require you to conduct microeconometric analyses related to surveys (primarily in Stata), big-data analyses (using R, Python and SQL), also in cloud computing, and time-series analyses (primarily in MATLAB). You may also be required to solve, calibrate and simulate DSGE models with banking and financial frictions (using MATLAB and Dynare).The position offers you excellent opportunities to work closely with our economists and our management team. You will support them in academic research projects and operational work such as the preparation of policy-related notes for the ECB’s Executive Board. The traineeship programme will allow you to develop your analytical skills, enhance your quantitative skills and gain an insight into the ECB’s research activities and policymaking processes. It will expose you to ideas, debates and challenges that could provide a useful foundation for your future career and / or postgraduate studies. You will have access to internal seminars and conferences organised by the ECB. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.
Qualifications, experience and skills
Essential :
for a traineeship paid at €2,120, a master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of economics, statistics, finance, data science or a related field;for a traineeship paid at €1,170, a bachelor’s degree or higher in economics, statistics, finance, data science, mathematics, engineering or a related field;mastery of basic econometrics (linear regression, hypothesis testing, instrumental variables, panel estimation and vector autoregression);proficiency in at least one of the following statistical software packages : MATLAB, Stata, Python or R;a good knowledge of the MS Office package;an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the .Desired :
for a traineeship paid at €1,170, a master’s degree or completion of at least one year of study towards obtaining a master’s degree in economics, statistics, finance, computer science, mathematics, engineering or a related field;experience in at least one of the following areas : solving and simulating DSGE models; solving heterogeneous agent and / or non-linear macro models; performing vector autoregression and cointegration analysis; estimating difference-in-differences or propensity score matching econometric models; analysing macroeconomic or financial time-series data; compiling, querying and analysing large microeconomic databases (high-frequency data, administrative data, household or firm-level surveys, balance sheet data and micro price data); web-scraping, textual analysis or using machine learning techniques;experience of cloud computing (e.g. Amazon AWS);experience of survey data analysis (e.g. using national surveys or the Eurosystem’s Household Finance and Consumption Survey, the EU Labour Force Survey or others);experience of one or more of the following : macroeconomic data, financial market data, firm-level data, accounting / supervisory bank data, other microdata or large datasets;familiarity with one or more of the following databases / providers : Bloomberg, LSEG (formerly Refinitiv), DataStream, Haver Analytics, Moody's Analytics BankFocus (formerly Bureau van Dijk’s Orbis BankFocus), Fitch Connect, Dealogic, or large micro price datasets.You are curious and eager to learn and want to further develop your ability to analyse complex information. You are keen to collaborate with others, pursue team goals and learn from other people’s diverse perspectives. You strive to know and anticipate stakeholder needs and will signal any need for change and propose alternative solutions.You are motivated to contribute to the ECB’s mission, to serve the citizens of the EU as a member of a public institution and to work with colleagues from all over Europe. You are keen to be part of our team and to use your skills and competencies to achieve the aims of this position.