General Information
Type of contract: PhD traineeship
Who can apply? EU nationals eligible for our traineeship programme
Grant: 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: 19.02.2025
Your team
You will be part of the Fiscal Policies Division in the Directorate General Economics. Our team of approximately 25 experts is responsible for assessing the national fiscal policies of EU Member States and the fiscal stance of the whole euro area. We provide fiscal forecasts and analyse the impact of fiscal policy in a variety of areas, such as the energy crisis and high inflation, the macroeconomy, public debt dynamics, climate change, and monetary policy. Our Division is also responsible for analysing issues related to the reform of the EU fiscal framework.
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 PhD Trainee you will:
- conduct empirical analyses using state-of-the-art economic and econometric models;
- contribute to the enhancement of analytical, econometric and forecasting tools under the supervision of ECB experts – you may have the opportunity to submit papers based on this work for publication in the ECB’s Working Paper Series and academic journals.
You will also work on one of the following projects.
- Exploring the role of artificial intelligence, for example how we can use machine learning and deep learning and apply neural networks to large datasets to construct “sentiment indicators” for fiscal policy and to forecast fiscal variables (government revenues, expenditures, deficits), as well as to produce debt sustainability analyses.
- Exploring the impact of fiscal policies, such as fiscal policy multipliers, on the macroeconomy, based on both empirical and theoretical models, and in different phases of the business cycle. This may include contributing to the build-up of heterogeneous agent New Keynesian models.
- Assessing the role national and aggregate euro area fiscal policies play in climate change mitigation, evaluating debt sustainability risks, and exploring the trade-off between debt sustainability and the stabilisation function of fiscal policies.
- Assessing the recent reform of EU fiscal rules, options for provision of common public goods in the Economic and Monetary Union and the EU, risk-sharing mechanisms, the interplay between fiscal rules and market discipline, and the implications of introducing a safe asset for the Economic and Monetary Union.
- Developing time series models for forecasting fiscal variables, including models which combine data sampled at different frequencies, evaluating the impact of revisions in fiscal data and differences between real-time and revised data, and assessing the determinants of forecasting errors by international institutions.
- Exploring optimality conditions for the interaction between monetary and fiscal policies when the assumption of perfectly functioning financial markets is abandoned.
The traineeship offers you excellent opportunities to build on your skills and gain experience as an economist. 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:
- a master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of economics, finance, statistics, data science, engineering or a related field;
- a sound understanding of and theoretical background in macroeconomics and the economic and institutional context in which the ECB fulfils its mandate, including the role of fiscal policies in the Economic and Monetary Union;
- programming skills in quantitative software such as 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:
- experience in applying structural, panel, global, Bayesian and non-linear (time-varying parameters, Markov switching) vector autoregressions (VARs) and co-integration analysis;
- experience of factor models and state space/unobserved component models;
- experience in applying macroeconomic models, e.g. dynamic stochastic general equilibrium, backward-looking or agent-based, overlapping generation models, using DYNARE or your own coding;
- experience authoring publications relevant to the Fiscal Policy Division’s work.
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
Initial PhD traineeship of between 3 and 6 months, with a possible extension to up to 12 months in total.
Other details on the conditions applicable to traineeships at the ECB can be found on our website.
For additional information on this specific vacancy, you can speak to Krzysztof Bankowski on +49 69 1344 8421.
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.
The European Central Bank
Directorate General Human Resources
