Young Soo Jang | 2015 | Interns

Young Soo Jang (’16)

Mathematics and Economics Major

Federal Reserve

This summer I interned in the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. I had the chance to work with two economists on research projects pertaining to short-term funding markets in the US.

The first project I worked on relates to behavior economics of loans. We wanted to see how the recent financial crisis changed bank practices of resolving loan defaults and how different cures of these violations affected the borrowing firms’ business performances. For this project, I spent most of my time collecting these data from 10-K and 10-Q filings and standardizing the coding procedure for further econometric analyses. In the next project, I was given access to the Fed’s confidential database on short-term securities on daily issuance and outstanding level. Manipulating these data, I formed a data set on the relationship between dealers and money market funds in various short-term funding markets such as commercial paper and repurchase agreement. This data set was then used in analysis to assess the ability of dealers to provide liquidity in these markets.

Besides research I attended seminars on various fields in economics and training sessions to get familiarized with the organization’s exclusive technology and database. The ten week long internship at the board provided me with valuable exposure to how data-oriented economic research and other intricate functions at the Fed come together in shaping monetary policy that influence not just the US, but also the global economy. I believe that my experience at the Fed undoubtedly will serve as a vital stepping-stone to my future career in economics and finance.