Research Analysts

     There were many times that I generated an idea for a specification or chart and was encouraged to see it through, and I’ve written large parts of research blogs and papers interpreting our results. I have been able to co-author multiple blogs on Liberty Street Economics and a research paper that’s currently under review at an academic journal.

     Further, the economists encouraged me to generate and develop my own research ideas. With Daniel Mangrum, I worked on a project analyzing the impacts of legalizing sports betting on consumer credit. He worked with me to generate the idea and develop it—he provided guidance throughout and we hope to co-author an academic paper when the project is completed. All in all, I’ve been very grateful for the opportunities to contribute to research projects and gain valuable experience as I now head to graduate school in economics.

I loved my time as an intern at the New York Fed. My internship project was initially slated to be about recent changes in small business access to credit, with an eye toward the recent rise of “fintech” (financial technology) lenders. However, this topic was finalized in February of 2020….so plans quickly changed! I instead spent the summer of 2020 working on understanding the ins and outs of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—a massive government credit program designed to help small businesses weather the storm without laying off their employees.

     The experience and skills I developed over my ten weeks as an intern immediately helped me to become a better researcher—what questions were important? How could we use our data and analysis to convincingly answer them? The economists with whom I worked were instrumental in helping me along the way—I was consistently encouraged to provide my own views and opinions on our analysis of the data.

     This dynamism—shifting gears to a totally different and extremely time-relevant project on short notice—really highlights why the NY Fed is such a unique and exciting place for someone new to research. When something as fundamental as the pandemic hits the global economy, Fed economists are equipped and encouraged to pursue real-time research that helps to inform policy design.

The RA cohort, and the Research Group more generally, have provided such a supportive and collegial environment for me to carry out my work and to acquire new skills. In addition to collaborating with RAs on my team on both policy and research projects, RAs from all over the floor have helped me with coding questions, cleaning unfamiliar data sets, and even course work for the Time Series Analysis course I took at CUNY Hunter while an RA.

     The RAs encompass such a wide breadth of expertise in different coding languages, econometric techniques, and subject areas, so there is truly always someone to answer whatever question you might have. The same is certainly true for the economists. Although RAs mainly work with economists within their department, I’ve had the chance to build relationships with economists all over the floor, both through our formal mentorship program and simply because Fed economists tend to be very approachable and willing to discuss your research interests and your plans for the future. With the economists I’ve worked most closely with, I’ve enjoyed how interested they have been to hear my perspective on the projects we’ve worked on together.

The RA program allows me to learn how an economist approaches a question and to sharpen my research skills from coding (Stata, SQL, Python and so on) to time management. What truly sets the NY Fed program apart for me are exposure to policy projects and channels to learn from experts beyond my direct supervisors.

In my first year, for example, I worked with my economist supervisor Matteo Crosignani on a joint project with the Bank for International Settlements. We built on the CLASS framework—developed by my other supervisor Anna Kovner—and tried to gauge how rising interest rates could impact the largest U.S. banks. Experiences like this reinforce my interest to become a policy-minded financial researcher.

     I also had abundant opportunities to learn from experts from within and outside of the Bank. Through the internal RA Mentoring Program, I paired up with Jason Somerville and Antoine Martin, two economists with distinct interests and in different divisions than mine. In addition, our seminar organizers almost always make sure to reserve time slots for all RAs to meet with speakers. I was also able to learn from external speakers and visiting scholars about how they navigate their career from entering graduate school to becoming an independent thinker.

     Many of my RA peers went on to pursue paths other than an economics Ph.D. Several of them told me that they found the RA experience useful in clarifying how research in general would fit in their career. For example, in a typical policy project, an RA could be involved in a collaboration between the Research, the Markets and the Supervision Group—and the team members bring their unique research capabilities to the table, with or without a Ph.D.