European Central Bank

The European Central Bank is the central bank for the 19 European Union countries that have adopted the euro.

Courses

Economics (Course 14)
Management (Course 15)
Mathematics (Course 18)

Location

Frankfurt

Tags

finance

The overarching mission of the European Central Bank (ECB) is to maintain price stability by safeguarding the value of the euro. The ECB houses a number of divisions that work towards accomplishing the tasks set out by its mission, including: to implement monetary policy for the euro area, to conduct foreign exchange operations, to promote the smooth operation of payment systems, to authorize the issuance of banknotes, and to supervise credit institutions located in the euro area and participating non-Euro Member States.
 

Student Story|Daisy Tang, Econ and Management '17

Daisy Tang, Econ and Management '17

European Central Bank in Frankfurt

I was able to undertake two main projects for both the Financial Stability Surveillance Division and the Economics Division. For the Financial Stability Surveillance Division I used text mining to construct an indice for herding as a response to the observed low levels of market liquidity in several asset classes. My participation in the project spurred from my interest in behavioral economics. I was able to put together a final working paper that surveyed a number of traditional and accepted types of herding indices and that recommended two feasible approaches for the study.

For the Economics Division, I built upon a previous 2014 study developing a common model for residential investment in the Euro area that focuses on describing the short term dynamics of the housing market that may be important to the forecasting of house price bubbles and business cycles. Using data and programs from the previous study, I learned to update the data from several statistical databases using the FAME language. My knowledge of econometrics also allowed me to explore the importance of financial variables to the forecast and to test several different time series models in forming estimates.

What I learned was that I loved working at a Central Bank. Rarely did I think before coming into the experience that I could consider a career for a regulatory body.  Delving deep into the research process helped me parse what exactly in economics sparks my research curiosity. Is it behavioral economics? Or is it real estate economics? I learned that research in both could be equally rewarding, though I would say that I am slightly more drawn to behavioral economics as a research topic due to the bigger questions still left unanswered by existing empirical research.

Back to top