Your team

You will be part of the Monetary Policy Research Division in the Directorate General Research. Our Directorate General has 62 staff providing research-based policy analysis to the ECB's decision-making bodies. We are currently working on analysing the price setting of firms using microdata, studying the expectations of euro area consumers in real time with the ECB's new Consumer Expectations Survey, and exploring the impact of conventional and unconventional monetary policy using state-of-the-art dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models and econometric techniques.

The Monetary Policy Research Division works on a broad range of research projects and provides research-based policy advice. Its activities include performing analysis in support of the ECB's monetary policy strategy, exploring the effectiveness and transmission of non-standard monetary policy measures and supporting the development phase of the Consumer Expectations Survey. 

In your role as a Student Research Assistant Trainee, you will be part of team responsible for compiling and analysing cross-sectional, time-series and panel datasets and helping to solve and estimate linear and non-linear general equilibrium models, working closely with researchers from all research areas on a regular basis.

Depending on your area of expertise, you will be assigned to one of three main areas:

• Macroeconomic models 

Topics include: developing, solving and estimating general equilibrium models using perturbation or global methods; contributing to analysis on topics such as the effects of standard and non-standard monetary policy, the interactions between monetary and fiscal policies, the nexus between monetary policy, financial stability and macroprudential policy, the implications of climate change for monetary policy, the redistributive effects of monetary policy and the macroeconomic effects of pandemics.

• Time series 

Topics include: maintenance and further development of existing tools, such as structural vector autoregressions (SVARs), unobserved components models and non-linear time series models; contributing to empirical analysis on topics such as the transmission of monetary policy, financial shocks and inflation dynamics; creating and maintaining databases of quarterly, monthly, daily or high-frequency data from Bloomberg, Refinitiv Eikon, DataStream, the ECB's Statistical Data Warehouse (SDW), Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) and Refinitiv Tick History.

• Micro panel data 

Topics include: parametric and semi-/non-parametric panel data models, such as random/(high-dimensional) fixed effects models, difference in difference, matching models, quantile regression, partial identification, classification techniques, machine learning and web-scraping; creating and linking new datasets, as well as querying and maintaining databases of quarterly, monthly and daily frequency derived from commercial databases and Eurosystem data; handling and analysing large, high-frequency contract-level financial data, supervisory bank data and new survey data; contributing to microdata analysis on topics such as monetary policy transmission, the credit channel, labour market dynamics and consumer expectations.

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 age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other characteristics.

Your role

As a Student Research Assistant Trainee, you will:

• support researchers in solving and/or estimating frontier macro models;
• develop mathematical, statistical and econometric procedures for research projects;
• contribute to empirical analyses and analytical projects;
• establish and maintain cross-sectional, time-series and panel datasets;
• participate in projects that entail working extensively with unique confidential datasets, macroeconomic and microeconomic data and financial, supervisory and intraday market data;
• present data in conjunction with theoretical economic and statistical analysis.

The position offers you excellent opportunities 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, enhance your quantitative skills and gain an insight into the ECB's research activities and policymaking processes. The traineeship programme will also expose you to new ideas and stimuli that can provide a useful foundation for your future career and/or postgraduate studies. In particular, 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 €1,940, a master's degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of economics, statistics, finance, computer science or a related field;
• for a traineeship paid at €1,070, a bachelor's degree or higher in economics, statistics, finance, computer science, mathematics, engineering or a related field;
• 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 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Desired: 

• for a traineeship paid at €1,070, a master's degree or at least one complete year towards 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 estimating DSGE models; solving heterogeneous agent and/or non-linear macro models; performing vector autoregression and cointegration analysis; estimating difference in difference or propensity score matching econometric models; analysing macroeconomic or financial time-series data; compiling 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;
• proficiency in another of the following statistical software packages: MATLAB, Stata, Python, R, Fortran, Julia, SQL, Tableau;
• experience with 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, Refinitiv, DataStream, Haver Analytics, Bureau van Dijk, Fitch Connect, SNL Financial or Dealogic.

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.

Who can apply

Students, including PhD students, or recent graduates can apply for a traineeship.

All candidates should:

• be a national of a Member State of the EU or of an acceding country;
• be at least 18 years old;
• have completed at least a first cycle qualification (minimum bachelor's degree);
• be fluent in English and in another official language of the EU.

Following their most recent qualification candidates should:

• have a maximum of 12 months' professional experience;
• have been a trainee for no more than six months;
• not have been an ECB trainee or have worked for the ECB previously.

Closing date: 10.1.2022

Further information

Traineeship/PhD traineeship of 6 months, with a possible extension to up to 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.