We have a lot of ressources on Equity Research on this website thanks to different members that work in this sector. But on the other side the economic research is poorly covered. Is there anyone that can share some piece of informations on the job ? I would appreciate any input on: how you get in (do you need a Master or a Phd..., what do you do ? How you help the sales and traders and how you interact with them, what are the pro and cons of this job, what pays looks like, the lifestyle, eventualy exit opps. I insist that I'm not speaking about FX or any specific product here but the very economic research like the world famous Jim O'Neill is doing for Goldman Sachs.
Regards,
I used to work at an economic research firm based out of London. It analyzed over 15 currency pairs, unemployment rates, housing markets, bond auctions, Fed Announcements etc. Our main clients were large trading desks at BB's and a lot of algo-traders. Everyone there was extremely smart but no one really had Phd's. Depending on what you cover you could easily exit to a macro or fixed income fund. A lot of the employees worked at larger banks before. My boss was on Bloomberg Radio pretty regularly getting interviewed with other economists.
This was a small firm with 100 people working for them in their New York, London, and Singapore offices combined. I know Roubini Global Economics hires highly qualified talent with most of their employees being Phds in econometrics, game theory, and all that other fun stuff. Pay is considerably higher there and all types of organizations go to Roubini for advice despite his nickname "Dr. Doom."
Could I PM you? 😁
Dude this was a 12 year old thread. Feel free to PM me but I'm not sure how helpful I can be.
Thank you. I appreciate your input. Your work seemed to be quite interesting. You say that trading desks were your customer, don't they have their own research group ? Did they want a different point of view on some events ? Why did you quit ? Did you want to do something different ?
I am just an undergraduate student. The products we sent were like bloomberg updates but with more analysis. If there was a trader with 6 screens one of them would have our feed. I stopped because I didn't have as much responsibility that I wanted and got an opportunity to work at a small equities value hedge fund.
From a BB view, economists work together quite closely with the country strategists. For example if you were the Latin America economist, you would have conversations with the different country strategists on the developments of their market, and exchange views on what you see from a macro level. In turn, they could give you input from the research coverage they have and see if the two stories add up together.
Our economists do go on roadshows around the world too just like a regular analyst. Most of the time its a breath of fresh air for us (and clients) from the company stock coverages that gets broked all day and all week.
Thanks Shorttermbuy I was away for a while sorry. Can you tell me if these guys have PhD or not ? I assume that lifestyle/pay is about the same as in equity research area ?
up
anybody ?
bumppppp
not sell side, but our in house economists all have phds.
thanks bearcats. Any clue for strategists role ?
I had some exposure to the economics research department of non-BB bank.
Half had masters and half had PhDs. As you can probably guess, the atmosphere is relaxed and the hierarchy is very flat. The hours are good (10-12), and mostly no weekends. Around 20-25% of the time the economists would be away on trips worldwide just having lunch/dinner with client portfolio managers. Some of the research may be dependent on what the traders/strat groups want, but a large part of it was also just topics that the economists felt like writing about.
What kind of money do top economists make?
Lower then if you were covering an equity sector because you can monetize your ideas and directly link business generated by trading done in your sector. As an economist your publishing your thoughts on macroeconomic events. Hard to tie revenue to that.
If you go to the top position you can still make up to 4-5 million when you're in your mid-late 40s. Of course only 1/5th the salary of the actual CEOs, but you can always become another Mark Carney if you're keen on doing so. And if you think that most MBAs will never make it even to VP or MD, and that most PhD associates eventually get good jobs in and out of the firms, then it might be a better career choice in addition to getting more intellectual fulfillment.
Consider this list : Mark Carney, William Dudley, Jan Hatzius, Stephen Roach, etc...they all started out in economic research.
Where does economic research fit in? (Originally Posted: 06/12/2010)
Where does economic research fit in? I'm talking about the guys who write up reports on global economic conditions and such. For example, Morgan Stanley's Global Economic Forum. Is this Front Office, Middle Office, something else? This is where my interests lie. What are the hours and pay like? I would not be a PhD, but a master's.
I'm also interested to know that.
Bump
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