General Information

Type of contract:  Traineeship 

Who can apply?:  EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme

Grant:  The trainee grant is €1,070 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section), The trainee grant is €1,940 per month plus an accommodation allowance (see further information section)

Working time:  Full time

Place of work:  Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Closing date:  18.12.2023

Your team

You will be part of either the Monetary Policy Research Division or the Senior Management team in the Directorate General Research. Our Directorate General provides research-based policy analysis for the ECB’s decision-making bodies. We conduct and coordinate economic research on issues relating to monetary policy, financial stability and ECB Banking Supervision. We use state-of-the-art dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models and econometric techniques, analyse price dynamics using microdata and employ rich household-level data sources such as monthly survey data on the perceptions and expectations of euro area consumers about the economy to research heterogeneity in the monetary policy transmission.

In your role as Student Research Assistant Trainee, you will be part of a 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 

Activities include: developing, solving and estimating general equilibrium models using perturbation or global methods and contributing to analysis on topics such as the effects of standard and non-standard monetary policy, the interactions between monetary policy and fiscal policy, 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 

Activities include: maintaining and further developing existing tools, such as structural vector autoregressions, unobserved component 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; and creating and maintaining databases of quarterly, monthly, daily or high-frequency data from Bloomberg, Refinitiv Eikon, Datastream, the ECB’s Statistical Data Warehouse, Federal Reserve Economic Data and Refinitiv Tick History.

• Micro panel data 

Activities include: working with parametric and semi/non-parametric panel data models such as random/(high-dimensional) fixed effects models, difference-in-differences, matching models, quantile regression, partial identification, classification techniques, machine learning and web-scraping; creating and linking datasets; querying and maintaining high and low-frequency databases derived from commercial and Eurosystem datasets; handling and analysing large, high-frequency contract-level financial data, supervisory bank data and new survey data; and analysing microdata on topics such as monetary policy transmission, heterogeneity, the credit channel, labour market dynamics or 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 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;
• work with a broad range of 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 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. This 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. The traineeship programme will expose you to ideas, debates and challenges that can 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 €1,940, a master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of economics, statistics, finance, data science, mathematics, engineering or a related field;
• for a traineeship paid at €1,070, 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, 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 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Desired: 

• for a traineeship paid at €1,070, a master’s degree or at least one year of study 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 simulating dynamic stochastic general equilibrium 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;
• proficiency in another of the following statistical software packages: MATLAB, Stata, Python, R, Fortran, Julia, SQL or 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’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.

Further information

Traineeship/PhD traineeship of between 6 and 12 months in total.

Other details on the conditions applicable to traineeships at the ECB can be found on our website.

Application and selection process

The recruitment process for this position will include an online interview. 

Further information on how to apply is available on our website.

If you are not selected for this position but are still considered suitable, you will be placed on a reserve list for 12 months from the closing date for applications, from which you might be considered for other traineeship positions within the ECB.