Economist Intern Report 2019 
 
 
International Monetary Fund Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific 

Two int’l students have been offered internship opportunities at the IMF Regional Office for Asia and the 
Pacific (OAP) this year. This is a report of their internship experience. 

Yaming Chang
Intern Project   From Shenyang, China 
Two Economist Interns of this year focused on a   Jilin University, BA 
research project on Japan’s tourism boom. Results and   Hitotsubashi University, PhD candidate

conclusions will be published in the context of the IMF 
country surveillance activities for Japan, prospectively  Qianmao Ted Zhu
early in 2020 as an “IMF Selected Issues Paper” and    From Beijing, China 
later on as an “IMF Working Paper”.      Cornell University, BA 
  University of Tokyo, MA candidate 

Recruitment Schedule in 2019

6/9 6/16 7/1 7/29 8/5 10/4 11/29

Q1. What is your major and what was your motivation for the application?

Yaming Ted
I am a Ph.D. candidate specializing in financial econometrics and I was born in China, went to college in the US and am now studying
interested in international finance. In 2018, I participated in the " as a graduate student in Japan majoring in Modern Economics. The
Macroeconomist Training Program" by the IMF (OAP), which issues of international cooperation and economic research intrigue
provided me with a deeper understanding of work at the IMF. This me significantly and became my motivation to pursue an internship
summer, I applied to the economist intern position because I at the IMF.
wanted to know more about the work of an economist work at the
IMF. Moreover, I think this internship is an opportunity for young
researchers to enrich their research experience and to deal with
practical economic issues in the real world.

Q2. What did you prepare for the application materials?

Yaming Ted
Applicants need to submit a CV and answer some specific All application materials are submitted online. Besides resume,
questions online. After being invited to the intern interview, I was contact information and some short questions to be filled up
asked to provide my transcripts, one of my recent academic works, online, you would need to list two referees who would be willing to
and two recommendation letters. During the application process, it
provide a recommendation letter for you in case of need. (Notice
is vital to illustrate your research interests, reasons for applying,
that OAP will directly contact the two referees for letters).
economics knowledge background, and skills to conduct economic
research.

Q3. What were you asked for in the interview?

Yaming Ted

I was asked to talk about my motivation for applying, econometrics The interview was about 30 minutes, carried out in English. There were

background, and recent research paper. The following questions first several behavioral questions for around 10 minutes, including self-

were related to our research project, such as: what kind of introduction, questions on CV, past projects and class experience, etc.

variables or models you want to use for empirical analysis, or what Then it gradually went into more analytical questions. For my case, I

type of software packages you would like to apply. was asked to come up with a possible econometric model for Japanʼs
tourism, including dependent and explanatory variables to be
considered, possible regression methods, and possible ways of data
retrieval. The analytical questions will differ depending on the project,
but I would say that the OAP value the quantitative analysis ability
significantly.
Q4. What were your main tasks in the internship?

Yaming Ted
We conducted economic research about the determinants of I spent most of the time doing and supporting quantitative
tourist arrivals and their expenditure in Japan. Firstly, I cooperated analysis. There were needs from the supervisor for a specific type
with Ted to prepare for the data set for this project. After that, I of data to be retrieved from specific databases, and many data
reviewed the previous research and advised on the model were incomplete or not carefully formatted so there were several
selection, in accordance with our research interest and preceding tasks for data cleaning. In my case I used programming a lot and
data diagnostics. Sequentially, I listed the estimation steps and created several codes and excel modules using VBA to support the
wrote the corresponding STATA code. At last, conclusions were data cleaning process. Moreover, some data were not available
drawn from the estimation results. online so there were some manual input tasks as well. There were
also some econometric analysis tasks which required usage of
Stata and EViews, and some literature reviews on method of
analysis. Be prepared to read a lot of literature. Overall, I would
describe the internship as a demanding but fun experience!

Q5. What did you remember mostly about the internship?

Yaming Ted
Team members inspired each other and cooperated efficiently. When the processed data get utilized and the regression result go
Staff at the OAP are friendly and supportive. Besides, lunchtime well, you really feel like everything pays off. I believe that the same
with colleagues was enjoyable. feeling is held by many researchers.

Q6. What have you obtained from the internship?

Yaming Ted
I became more familiar with macroeconomic data availability and Teamwork ability, data mining ability, data processing ability,
learned some techniques to cope with data more efficiently. This econometric skills, knowledge about the global economy and many
experience also allowed me to broaden my knowledge of different research abilities. If you are doing or considering a PhD in
econometrics by researching an unfamiliar topic. Additionally, economics, the internship at OAP is really the best kind of
during this internship, I often explained my ideas to others, which internship you could have expected.
was good practice for presenting research thinking.

Q7. Your message to the future applicants.

Yaming Ted
This internship is an excellent opportunity for students to enrich Make sure that you have good quantitative skills. Knowledge of
their research experience and cultivate teamwork ability. After programming and math ability will help. (There are many occasions
equipping yourself with economic knowledge and analytical skills, that you need to write programs or calculate macro-economic
itʼs time to use them for tackling the economic questions in the formulas, and I would not feel surprised if you get asked for
real world. This internship is a fantastic experience for me. Iʼm mathematics related questions in the interview.) English and
sure you can obtain a lot from this intern experience! Japanese ability are also vital because most research is carried out
together in a team in English and data are easier to find with
knowledge of Japanese. You need to let the team know what you
are doing and understand efficiently what your team did. If you
have strong language skills and a strong economic background,
please do not hesitate to apply! I really enjoyed all the working
environment, and people working together with me. are just so nice
that I really did not want to leave when the internship finished.