We are looking for PhD trainees to work in the Market-based Finance Division of our Directorate General. The Division is responsible for assessing and mitigating systemic risk stemming from the activities and behaviour of non-bank financial intermediaries. We also assess financial stability risk in financial markets and coordinate the Directorate General’s market intelligence activities, while working to enhance understanding of how market-based finance interacts with monetary policy.

Your role

• assess systemic risk in the non-bank financial sector, including risk from asset management and insurance activities;
• analyse the role of the non-bank financial sector in funding the real economy;
• work empirically with large granular datasets, such as data reports on derivatives or securities financing transactions, portfolio holdings data or commercial data on investment funds and financial markets;
• provide analytical input in the wider policy debate on non-bank financial intermediation and systemic risk.

Essential: 

• a master’s degree and at least two years of PhD studies in the field of finance, economics, statistics, mathematics, physics, engineering, computer science or a related discipline;
• a sound background in one or more of the following fields: asset pricing and derivatives, institutions and markets, financial sector analysis, corporate finance, policy and/or regulation, macro-finance, panel data and/or time series econometrics, numerical techniques, mathematical optimisation models, computational economics, network analysis and data science; 
• a good knowledge of one or more programming languages and/or econometric software packages (e.g. Python, R, SQL, PySpark, MATLAB or Stata);
• a sound 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 working with large granular datasets, combining different data sources and drawing information from complex financial and real sector data;
• a good knowledge of at least one of the areas listed in the “Your role” section above.