J-PAL Research Assistant
Job Description
Professor Amy Finkelstein is looking to hire highly skilled and motived full-time research associates to begin in the summer or fall of 2018 and to work for two years. The position will entail close collaboration and assistance with the design and analysis of randomized evaluations of interventions in US health care delivery. Examples of the types of projects research assistants would work on include studying the effect of expanding public health insurance (www.nber.org/oregon), analyzing the impacts of healthcare hotspotting on super-utilizers, and studying the effect of Clinical Decision Support on physician scan ordering. Responsibilities include assistance with all stages of empirical research in health economics; working with data sets, cleaning and running checks to spot errors, and generally preparing data for analysis; assisting with literature reviews; institutional review board applications, communicating with research partners about data requests and analysis, and the preparation of academic papers.
This position will be based at J-PAL North America (www.povertyactionlab.org/na) at MIT.
Qualifications
The ideal candidate will have the following qualifications:
- Strong quantitative
background
- Strong computer skills
including programming
- Ability to work
independently
- Long-term interest in
pursuing a PhD in economics
- Strong written and verbal
communication skills
- Background in economics and
randomized evaluations a plus, but not necessary (Professor Finkelstein
welcomes candidates with strong technical backgrounds who are looking for more
exposure to economics.)
- Prior research assistant
experience strongly preferred
- Excellent grades required
The job is ideal for someone with an enthusiasm for empirical research, and the ability and interest to learn new skills and take initiative as a project develops.