General Information
Type of contract
Traineeship
Who can apply?
EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme
Grant
The trainee grant is €1,170 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section), The trainee grant is €2,120 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section)
Working time
Full time
Place of work
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Closing date
05.01.2021
Your team
You will be part of the Directorate General Research, which carries out and coordinates economic research on monetary policy, financial stability and the conduct of banking supervision and regulation by the ECB.
In your role as Student Research Assistant Trainee, you will support the Directorate General’s work by compiling and analysing cross-sectional, time-series and panel datasets and helping to solve and estimate linear and nonlinear general equilibrium models. You will be assigned to one of our teams, each of which comprises between three and ten members of staff. Depending on your area of expertise, this will be:
- the Senior Management team, which works on a broad range of research topics in close collaboration with Isabel Schnabel, who sits on the ECB’s Executive Board;
- the Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN) team, which is responsible for analysing household heterogeneity in the euro area and interacts closely with national central banks through the HFCN research network.
We are currently working on analyses in support of the ongoing review of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy and exploring the effectiveness and side effects of non-standard monetary policy measures.
The ECB is an inclusive employer and we strive to reflect the diversity of the population we serve. We encourage you to apply, irrespective of your gender, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability or other characteristics.
Your role
As a Student Research Assistant Trainee you will:
- construct and maintain monetary, financial and economic databases;
- present data in conjunction with basic economic and statistical analysis;
- develop mathematical, statistical and econometric procedures for research projects;
- support and maintain software tools and hardware installations;
- help to maintain internet and intranet systems within DG/R.
As a trainee in the Student Research Assistant Programme, you will have the opportunity to work closely with our economists and management. You will support them in academic research projects and in work of an operational nature, such as the preparation of policy-related notes for the ECB’s Executive Board. This will enable you to develop your analytical skills and gain an insight into the ECB’s research activities and policymaking processes. The programme will also expose you to new ideas and stimuli that can provide a useful foundation for your future career and/or postgraduate studies. 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: a bachelor’s degree or higher in economics, statistics, finance, computer science, mathematics or a related field;
- for a PhD traineeship: a master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in economics, statistics, finance, computer science, mathematics or a related field;
- familiarity with macroeconomic and financial statistics as presented in international databases;
- an excellent command of at least one of the following high-level programming languages: MATLAB, Stata, Python or R;
- familiarity with one or more of the following databases/providers: Bloomberg/Eikon, Thomson Reuters Datastream, Haver Analytics, Bureau van Dijk, Fitch Connect/FactSet, SNL Financial, Dealogic or the Household Finance and Consumption Survey;
- a very good knowledge of spreadsheet and database software, such as Microsoft Excel, SQL, Microsoft Access and FAME; an ability to use Excel graphing, pivot tables and summary statistics functions;
- a good knowledge of the MS Office package;
- experience in at least one of the following areas: solving and estimating DSGE models; solving heterogeneous agent and/or nonlinear macro models; analysing macroeconomic or financial time-series data; compiling and analysing large microeconomic databases;
- an advanced (C1) command of English and an intermediate (B1) command of at least one other official language of the EU, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Desired:
- for a traineeship: a master’s degree or at least one complete year towards a master’s degree in economics, statistics, finance, computer science, mathematics or a related field.
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 objectives of this position.
Further information
Traineeship/PhD traineeship of between 6 and 12 months in total.
Application and selection process
Further information on how to join us is available on our
website.
The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview via WebEx.
