Traineeship in the Directorate General Monetary Policy

You will join the Directorate General Monetary Policy (DG/MP). DG/MP analyses the ECB’s monetary policy strategy and stance, as well as monetary and financial developments. It also contributes to decision-making and external communications (e.g. through economic research papers, speeches and official ECB publications). You will be offered a traineeship in one of the following three divisions:

The Capital Markets and Financial Structure Division analyses financial markets from a monetary policy perspective. It assesses the non-bank transmission channel of monetary policy, covering the term structure of interest rates; the sovereign bond, corporate bond and stock markets; and the financing structure of non-financial corporations. The Division also analyses the impact of the ECB’s policy measures on financial markets using quantitative models. It contributes to internal and external publications on monetary policy and euro area financial markets.

The Monetary Policy Strategy Division analyses and assesses the ECB’s monetary policy stance as well as longer-term strategic issues and contributes to preparing the Governing Council’s decisions on ECB interest rates and non-standard monetary policy measures. It also develops models and tools with the aim of analysing euro area money markets and the impact of standard and non-standard monetary policy measures on financial conditions and the wider economy. Moreover, it contributes to ECB communication on monetary policy as well as research on the design and impact of a digital euro.

The Monetary Analysis Division oversees the assessment of both bank and non-bank funding conditions and liquidity across the euro area; macro-financial linkages; the functioning of the bank lending transmission channel; and the calibration of standard and non-standard monetary policy measures working through bank and non-bank intermediaries. It also contributes to the identification of credit constraints using firm-level and bank-level information and more granular data from credit registers. Finally, it provides regular inputs for the Eurosystem/ECB staff macroeconomic projection exercises and assesses the implications of central bank digital currencies.

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.

As a trainee you will:

• work closely with your Division’s economists and research analysts, contributing to the daily tasks of the Division as well as to longer-term analytical projects;
• collaborate with economists on enhancing analytical and econometric tools;
• contribute to empirical analyses and analytical projects;
• work extensively with datasets, including macroeconomic and microeconomic data, and financial and intraday data, as well as maintaining, updating and further developing the data infrastructure;
• maintain and further develop the existing quantitative tools and modelling infrastructure;
• contribute to the updating of charts and tables for regular internal and external reports and presentations in liaison with other business areas within the ECB.

The position offers you excellent opportunities to enhance your quantitative skills, work on analytical tasks and collaborate with experienced central bank economists. It also provides a unique opportunity to gain insights into analysis and policy within a central bank, as well as to further develop your career. You will be part of a multicultural team that strives for continuous innovation to make a positive impact on the lives of European citizens.

Essential:

• a bachelor’s degree or higher in economics, finance, econometrics, mathematics, statistics, data science, social sciences or a related field;
• knowledge of statistical and econometric software, such as MATLAB, Python, R, Stata or VBA Excel;
• experience with one or more of the following types of economic data: macroeconomic data, financial market data, firm-level data, accounting/supervisory data on banks, transaction-level data, other micro data, and/or large datasets (“big data”);
• a sound understanding of the economic issues covered by at least one of the Divisions listed above;
• an advanced knowledge of the MS Office package, in particular Excel and PowerPoint;
• 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:

• a master’s degree or higher in economics, finance, econometrics, mathematics, statistics, data science or a related field, or being close to completing such studies in the course of 2022;
• a solid background in econometrics (in particular, time series econometrics, econometrics of panel data and microeconometrics) or statistics and data science (for example web-scraping, text analysis or other advanced machine learning techniques);
• practical experience in working with relational databases, using SQL and/or other big data analytical tools on Hadoop, Spark or similar big data frameworks;
• substantial experience with econometrics software packages, such as MATLAB, Python, R or Stata;
• practical experience in using visualisation tools, such as Tableau or R shiny;
• experience of assisting in research;
• experience in using market data services, such as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters/Refinitiv (Eikon and/or DataStream), IHS Markit iBoxx, Haver Analytics, SNL Financial, Bureau van Dijk Orbis Bank Focus (formerly Bankscope) for bank balance sheet data and Orbis Europe for firm balance sheet data.

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.