Research Associates have two primary responsibilities:

• Assisting economists in the analysis of current public policy issues and events
  
  RAs help economists conduct current analysis and other short-term research on monetary policy, bank regulation, payments systems, financial markets, and the state of the U.S. and global economies. Current analysis often culminates in reports or presentations to the Bank’s president and senior management.

• Assisting economists in long-term, academically oriented research projects
  
  RAs help economists plan and execute long-term research on a wide range of applied and theoretical topics. Many RAs have the opportunity to coauthor scholarly articles with the economists.

Some day-to-day activities include:

• Conducting econometric, computational, and analytical research intended for Bank publications as well as academic journals



• Programming in statistical packages, such as SAS, STATA, MATLAB, and GAUSS



• Running financial, banking, macroeconomic, and international forecasting models



• Reviewing and organizing economic and financial data



• Compiling and assessing information from academic journals, market sources, and government reports



• Writing or assisting with reports and presentations on current economic and financial conditions and policy issues



• Developing spreadsheet/web macros and programs to enhance data manipulation and analysis



• Preparing background materials for and assisting in the formulation of senior management briefings.