Research Department Research Assistant Pre-Doc Consultant
RES/RES
Location: Washington DC, United States.
The IDB Group is a community of diverse, versatile, and passionate people who come together on a journey to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our people find purpose and do what they love in an inclusive, collaborative, agile, and rewarding environment.
About this position
To achieve sustainable and equitable development in the region, the Research Department (RES) generates new ideas to enrich the knowledge base supporting the policy agenda of the Bank and its member countries. To maximize the impact of its research, RES carries out activities that serve as inputs to Bank departments, governments, academia, and public opinion in the region.
RES advises management on economic and development issues, conducts research and analysis on macro- and microeconomics trends, and oversees the development of the Bank’s quantitative and analytical databases. RES’s staff consists of a team of researchers with excellent academic credentials, superior research and policymaking experience, and expertise in different areas.
The Research Assistant (Pre-Doc) will work with a RES economist’s team. After completing this assignment, RES Research Assistants typically go on to pursue their Ph.D. or Masters studies. In recent years, Research Assistants have gone to Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Columbia, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and others.
What you’ll do
· Assist researchers in the preparation of research papers, reports, and presentations.
Identify, compile, and organize databases. Perform econometric and statistical analyses. Prepare literature reviews. Participate in academic discussions on research findings. Provide support in project management or field experiments.What you'll need
· Education: Master’s degree (or equivalent advanced degree) in economics, public policy, or other fields relevant to the responsibilities of the role.
· Experience: At least 2 years of experience in applied research at a recognized university, research center, or government agency. Strong quantitative background. Prospects of pursuing doctoral-level studies.
· Languages: Proficiency in Spanish and English, spoken and written, is required. Additional knowledge of French and Portuguese is preferable.
Key skills
· Strong background in econometrics, statistics, and/or data science.
· Experience in applied microeconometrics, causal inference, and/or program evaluation.
· Experience with econometric packages such as Stata, R, Python. Advanced programming level in at least one of these packages necessary.
· Experience creating text, equations, tables, figures in a LaTeX environment such as Overleaf.
Demonstrated experience in several of the following areas:
· Data fieldwork, collection, and management.
· Sample design and selection, randomized experiments.
· Survey questionnaire design and testing.
· Handling household surveys or administrative data.
· Web-scraping, data APIs, big data tools.
Requirements:
· Citizenship: You are a citizen of one of our 48-member countries.
· Residence: You must have resided in the United States for 3 out of the past 5 years, a necessary condition to be eligible for special sworn status to access US Census Bureau restricted data.
· Consanguinity: You have no family members (up to the fourth degree of consanguinity and second degree of affinity, including spouse) working at the IDB, IDB Invest, or IDB Lab.
· COVID-19 considerations: The health and safety of our employees are our number one priority. As a condition of employment, IDB/IDB Invest requires all new hires to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Type of contract and duration: