Pre-Doctoral Research Opportunities
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact. BFI takes a unique approach to bridging the divide between academic researchers and decision-makers in the business community and government by translating and packaging the rigorous work of the Chicago Economics community into accessible formats, and proactively sharing those findings with relevant decision-makers and thought leaders around the globe. BFI is a collaborative platform serving the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the Law School.
Filter By
-
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) is seeking to hire a full-time Research Professional to work for Professor John List as part of BFI’s Chicago Experiments Initiative. The Research Professional will collaborate on new and ongoing research projects with a focus on, but not limited to, the implementation and empirical analysis of field experiments. Specifically, the Research Professional is involved in advanced empirical work on charitable giving, education, labor economics, discrimination, behavioral economics, and other topics within applied microeconomics. The Research Professional is part of the vibrant research environment at The University of Chicago and may attend and participate in seminars and workshops in preparation for a successful academic career. This position requires a commitment of at least one year and applicants must be available to begin work in July 2022.
Successful candidates will work directly with Chicago Experiments as part of BFI’s Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP). The program is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. Applicants must have completed a Bachelors degree by June 2022 and have strong quantitative and programming skills. Candidates with research experience are strongly preferred, especially those with experience in Stata, R, Python or Matlab. The ideal candidate would begin on July 1, 2021 and work for BFI for one or two years before applying to graduate school in Economics or another quantitative social science. BFI offers competitive salary and employee benefits.
-
The Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) is seeking a Research Professional (RP) to work on new and ongoing research projects in and related to: international trade, spatial economics and the economics of climate change. The Research Professional will work under the guidance of Professor Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, but will also spend significant time working with Felix Tintelnot and others.
Professor Rossi-Hansberg is a leading scholar in a wide array of fields, among them spatial economics, international trade and economic growth, with an emphasis on quantitative models. His recent work can be found at www.rossihansberg.com. The RP’s work with Professor Rossi-Hansberg will involve interacting with his co-authors, other PhD students and RPs involved in this work at Chicago and other universities. The RP may work on all aspects of the research process from initial processing and organizing of large datasets, to helping formulate and running analyses on the University’s high-powered computing cluster, to producing tables and figures for non-technical summaries of the work.
Professor Tintelnot’s recent work can be found at www.felix-tintelnot.wikidot.com and includes contributions in international trade, multinational production, and economic geography. The RP’s work will likely focus on projects that develop new research methods for making predictions in quantitative spatial models. The RP may work on all aspects of the research process from initial processing and organizing of large datasets, theoretical modeling, computation, and helping to produce research notes to summarize the findings.
This position will be most desirable to candidates considering or planning to apply for graduate school during the second year of their RP role. Previous RP’s supervised by Ross-Hansberg or Tintelnot have attended PhD programs at Berkeley, the University of Chicago, UCLA, Princeton and Penn State, among others.
In addition to the frequent interaction with Professors Rossi-Hasnberg and Tintelnot, the RP will benefit from interacting with other peers as part of the large BFI Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP). As a member of the Chicago academic community, the RP will be able to take advantage of a rich set of programming and can attend seminars and workshops. To learn more about what the BFI environment has to offer, please visit: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/info-for/students/.
-
The Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, led by professor Michael Kremer, invites applicants for a prestigious predoctoral fellowship with substantive interests in development economics.
About the Lab
The Development Innovation Lab (DIL) at the Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) uses the tools of economics to develop innovations of practical use in developing countries. By bringing together experts in different fields and working closely with nonprofit organizations, firms and governments in developing countries, we can simultaneously advance knowledge and generate solutions to development challenges which can reach hundreds of millions of people.
Job Summary
DIL is seeking to hire a full-time Research Professional to work with Professor Michael Kremer, Nobel Laureate, and possibly other faculty as part of the Development Innovation Lab. Successful applicants will collaborate on new and ongoing research in development economics.BFI’s Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP) is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. Applicants must have completed a Bachelor’s degree by June 2022 and have strong quantitative and programming skills. Candidates with research experience are strongly preferred, especially those with experience in Stata, R, Python or Matlab. The ideal candidate would begin on July 1, 2022 and work for one or two years before applying to graduate school in Economics or another international development field. DIL offers competitive salary and employee benefits.
-
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) is seeking to hire a full-time Research Professional to work with Professor Magne Mogstad on ongoing and new research projects related to applied econometrics, labor and public economics. Applicants must be available to begin work in July 2021.
Successful candidates will work directly with Professor Magne Mogstad and co-authors as part of BFI’s Ronzetti Initiative for the Study of Labor Markets and BFI’s Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP).
The Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago is seeking multiple Research Professionals to work under the guidance of Professors Magne Mogstad, Thibaut Lamadon, and Evan Rose as part of BFI’s Ronzetti Initiative for the Study of Labor Markets. The position entails collaboration on new and ongoing research projects, with the specialization in using applied microeconometric techniques to analyze labor markets and social policy in developed economies, including (but not limited to) 1) understanding changes in labor demand (e.g., international competition and trade, regulation and firm dynamics), 2) understanding labor supply (e.g., household labor supply, barriers to geographical and occupational mobility), 3) understanding the determination of the labor market equilibrium, and the role of policy and institutions (e.g., the insurance and incentive effects of social insurance and safety net programs, quantifying monopsony power and implications), and 4) interactions between labor markets and the criminal justice system (e.g., effects of economic shocks on crime and recidivism). The program will remain small and emphasis will be put on interactions between participants, Prof. Mogstad, Prof. Lamadon, Prof. Rose, and the Department of Economics. We expect participants to be integrated into the research work at many levels.The program is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. Former Research Professionals have all been admitted to PhD programs at the highest ranked economics programs in the US.
Applicants must have completed a Bachelors degree by June 2022 and have strong quantitative and programming skills. Candidates with research experience are strongly preferred, especially those with experience in Stata, R, Python or Matlab. The ideal candidate would begin on July 1, 2022 and work for BFI for one or two years before applying to graduate school in Economics or another quantitative social science. BFI offers competitive salary and employee benefits.
-
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) is seeking to hire a full-time Research Professional to work with Professors Azeem Shaikh, Max Tabord-Meehan, Alex Torgovitsky, and Guillaume Pouliotas part of BFI’s Big Data Initiative and BFI’s Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP). Successful applicants will collaborate on new and ongoing research in econometric theory. The position will likely involve programming novel statistical procedures and conducting simulation experiments, as well as reading, understanding and summarizing current methodological papers in economics and statistics.
The program is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. Applicants must have completed a Bachelors degree by June 2022 and have strong quantitative and programming skills. Candidates with research experience are strongly preferred, especially those with experience in Stata, R, Python or Matlab. The ideal candidate would begin on July 1, 2022 and work for BFI for one or two years before applying to graduate school in Economics or another quantitative social science. BFI offers competitive salary and employee benefits.