Traineeship (PhD) - Hoofdinhoud

Function

The Directorate Monetary Policy, part of the Directorate General Economics of the European Central Bank, is seeking applications from postgraduate (preferably PhD) students who are close to completing their studies, or have recently graduated, who would be interested in taking up a traineeship in its Capital Markets and Financial Structure (CMT) Division for a period of three to six months.

The CMT Division’s main tasks are to analyse and assess (i) current developments in the capital markets of the euro area, notably bond and equity markets, and (ii) the monetary policy aspects of both developments in the financial structure of the euro area, particularly in relation to banking and securities markets, and financial decisions made by non-financial corporations.

The traineeship aims to give successful applicants the opportunity to contribute to an analytical project of interest to the CMT Division.

Successful applicants will be assigned a supervisor, but will also be expected to work on their own initiative and in a largely autonomous way with regard to the completion of their project. In addition, they will gain an overview of all the tasks performed by the Division and may also occasionally contribute to its regular work.

Candidates should submit a detailed project proposal. The following topics are of particular interest to the CMT Division:

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  modelling of the internal and external financing of financial and non-financial corporations in the euro area on the basis of data from companies’ financial statements (panel data econometrics);
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  heterogeneity of firms and the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises in the euro area; · forecasting of loans and bank lending rates;
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  banks’ behaviour and macroeconomic propagation (theoretical and/or empirical perspective);
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  regulatory and supervisory frameworks and the bank capital channel of monetary policy (theoretical and/or empirical perspective);
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  cross-country industry analysis of internationalisation and its impact on the sensitivity of stock returns to domestic and global macroeconomic shocks (looking at multinational firms’ exchange rate exposure and diversification);
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  modelling price dynamics in stock and bond markets;
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  modelling and empirical analysis of heterogeneity in capital markets and implications for asset pricing;
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  understanding and measuring asset price misvaluations (especially in stock and bond markets);
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  market liquidity and asset pricing (especially in the bond market); · pricing of credit risk and credit derivatives.

Qualifications and experience

Successful candidates must have the following knowledge and competencies:

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  The traineeship is aimed at highly promising postgraduate (preferably PhD) students who are relatively close to the completion of their studies in the areas of economics and finance, or have graduated recently.
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  Sound econometric skills, and experience with econometric packages and/or programming skills in Matlab are essential, as most of the CMT Division’s analytical projects are of an empirical nature.
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  A very good knowledge of English is required, as well as a good command of at least one other official European language.
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  Candidates should also have experience of working with standard MS Office applications (i.e. Word, Excel and Access) and/or scientific text processing systems such as Latex.

Behavioural Competencies

The successful candidate will have the following behavioural competencies:

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  adapts to changing plans and circumstances with ease;
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  demonstrates a conscientious attitude;
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  able to work without close supervision.

Duration of contract / Closing date

Traineeship contract of 3 to 6 months, with the possibility of an extension up to a maximum of one year depending on individual performance and organisational needs.

Closing date for applications: 17 February 2012

Further information

Applications are to be made in English and submitted using our online application form. An “Applicants’ Guide” can be downloaded from the “FAQs & Help” page.

Applicants should also submit a complete record of their undergraduate and postgraduate studies (with a list of courses and grades) and letters of recommendation from their supervisors or faculty members. The documents should be uploaded as a single .doc or .pdf file.

Applications are accepted from nationals of Member States of the European Union and Croatia.

Before applying, applicants should check that they meet the conditions set out in Article 3 of the rules governing the traineeship programme: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/jobs/pdf/coe_traineeship.pdf.

Further information on the ECB’s traineeships can be found at http://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/jobs/apply/html/index.en.html