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IDE Research Assistants (RA) program

The aim of the IDE Research Assistantship Program is to provide IDE students hands-on, skill building experience as a research assistant while also supporting the broader work of EGC and relevant faculty research. IDE interns in the Fall or Spring semester are eligible to work for a maximum of 120 hours from October through December and/or January through May, paid by IDE. In other words, RAs work roughly 10 hours per week – the maximum allowed in any given week is 20 hours, which is the ceiling imposed by Student Employment.

Professors, in this program or elsewhere at Yale, who are looking for RAs to do data analysis will be looking for STATA skills. Others will be looking for help with assembling and manipulating data, and those opportunities will not be so reliant on STATA. For some of you, STATA may be relatively new so we encourage any of you interested in RA positions to get some experience or sign up for one of the Yale Statlab/CSSSI minicourses on Stata after you arrive at Yale.

The benefit of being an RA goes beyond mere pay, because the RA experience can also be valuable as you apply for positions post-IDE, be they positions with J-PAL/EPoD/IPA, the World Bank or future academic programs.

Past EGC-IDE Research Assistant Experiences

Gender Dynamics and Health Outcomes in Ghana - Shwetha Eapen, IDE '20

Project Description:

Eapen spent her internship as a research assistant working on a large-scale panel survey in Ghana that is a collaboration between EGC at Yale, Northwestern University and the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Legon. She joined the team after the research team had completed collecting the third-wave of survey responses, and her primary task was to help clean and analyze the collected data. Of particular interest to Eapen were issues of household power dynamics between men and women.

The research team that she worked with also allowed her the flexibility to delve into topics that particularly appealed to her. “We were given the opportunity to browse through all the datasets and pick out the files that particularly interested us,” Eapen said.

Program Takeaways:

Through weekly trainings and team meetings, Eapen, who had prior experience coding with R, was able to further develop her Stata skills throughout her time as an RA. According to her, this experience cleaning and working with large datasets was especially valuable for later on in her career. “These are some of the main tasks that RAs do, even as full time research assistants,” Eapen said. “As a person who also wants to take up a full-time research assistantship, I think this was a perfect learning scenario.” In addition, the internship also provided her with a better understanding of the full research process: “Outside of the technical skills, it also gave me an understanding of how data is collected,” she said. “This was first-hand information, so it really gave me a better understanding of how it is in the field.” Since graduating from the IDE program, Eapen has taken a role as a consultant at the World Bank. “This was a really good stepping stone for moving into full-time professional work, and it really smoothed the transition,” she said.

Marriage and Labor Market Sorting - Valentina Goetz, IDE '20

Project Description:

During her time in the IDE Research Assistantship program, Goetz joined a team led by Ilse Lindenlaub, Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale, alongside Paula Calvo, a Yale PhD student, and Ana Reynoso, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. The project explored the economics behind how couples form, how they get married, and how marriage influences the firm that individuals choose to work at. Using an equilibrium model, the team assessed the downstream economic impacts of marriage and labor market sorting including inter- and intra-household income inequality as well as the gender wage gap.

Program Takeaways:

For Goetz, the value of the RA program came from an in-depth immersion in the economic research process. Throughout the extent of the program, she was able to develop strong coding skills, especially with Stata. In addition, by proofreading papers and engaging in conversation with Prof. Lindenlaub, Goetz learned about the economic theory behind these models as well as the overall research process. “The collaboration was a great experience,” she said. “They were very approachable and interested in making sure that I learned, which was really nice. ” Ultimately, the RA program provided Goetz with research experience and skills that would be applicable in her work after the IDE program as well. After graduating from Yale, she continued her work in economics by taking a role as a research assistant for Namrata Kala, a professor of management and applied economics at MIT. “The internship gave me experience that helped me to get this job [at MIT],” Goetz said.

National Growth Statistics in Developing Countries - Rhea Gupta, IDE '20

Project Description:

During her time as a research assistant, Gupta spent her time working on a team with Yale Professor and former Chief Economist of the World Bank Penny Goldberg and co-authors Noam Angrist and Dean Jolliffe. Specifically, her role on the research team was to help evaluate how reliable national growth statistics were in developing countries. Her work looked at how certain indicators like government influence and legal mandates for statistical reporting, may be impacting the reporting of certain national growth statistics. By assessing legislation and practices of certain countries, she had the opportunity to help make judgement calls regarding the efficacy of practices and laws around estimating national growth.

Reflecting back, Gupta pointed to this qualitative focus as a unique aspect of her research assistantship. “I learned a lot in terms of making judgement calls and using more than just Stata to do research work.”

Program Takeaways:

Since graduating from IDE, Gupta has joined the Poverty and Equity team at the World Bank where she conducts policy analysis and evaluates the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in Kenya. For Gupta, the research experience was useful in discovering some of the interests that would shape the beginning of her professional career. “The research assistantship program at Yale was a great way to work with qualitative data on macroeconomics,” Gupta said. “It enhanced my interest in the economics of growth.” Now, she hopes to explore the microeconomic components of development during her time at the World Bank as well. “I am so thankful Penny gave me the chance to work on this project. I had a wonderful time – the weekly calls with Noam were the highlight of this experience as I learnt from his experience, got regular feedback and had a space to explain my work.” Gupta said of the program. Given the situation with COVID-19, Gupta believes the research assistantship will be even more useful in providing relevant experience and skills that IDE graduates can rely on when entering the job market.

Domestic Violence in Bangladesh - Sisi Qiu, IDE '25

Project Description:

Qiu served as a research assistant on a project addressing domestic violence in rural Bangladesh, led by Dr. Nina Buchmann – an IDE alumna herself. The project’s focus was to understand the drivers of intimate partner violence and to test interventions that might reduce its prevalence. Qiu’s primary responsibility was data analysis: she worked extensively with baseline survey data, using Stata (and occasionally Python for machine learning techniques like random forests) to investigate factors that influence a man’s status in his village and the likelihood of him perpetrating violence against his wife. In essence, she was parsing the data to identify social and economic indicators associated with men being viewed as “respectable” in the community, as well as those correlated with abusive behaviors.

Qiu became involved in nearly every stage of the research process apart from the field experiment itself (which had been completed before she joined). After meeting Dr. Buchmann at a pre-program event – a casual tea mixer where incoming students could connect with faculty – Qiu was inspired by the project’s goals and listed Dr. Buchmann as her top choice to work with. Once on the team, she analyzed the project’s baseline data and produced comprehensive tables and graphs (in LaTeX format) to summarize the initial findings. She also contributed to writing up baseline analysis summaries and helped organize material for research proposals and grant applications. Through these tasks, Qiu gained experience in cleaning data, performing rigorous statistical analysis, and documenting results for academic and funding audiences. Working closely with Dr. Buchmann, Qiu saw firsthand how a research idea evolves from raw data into a structured study, and she appreciated having the chance to collaborate with an experienced researcher who was once in the same master’s program.

Program Takeaways:

Coming into IDE, Qiu knew she wanted to do research but felt she lacked substantial hands-on experience beyond a small independent project in undergrad. The assistantship changed that, giving her a clear understanding of the research process and the technical skills needed to contribute effectively. 

Over the course of the project, Qiu became proficient in tools like Stata (which she had never used before) and learned how to write clean, well-documented code that others – especially Principal Investigators – could easily follow. She also became familiar with professional workflows, such as preparing polished analysis outputs and managing the deliverables for grants and publications. This experience “set a standard expectation” for research work and helped her learn that she indeed enjoys and fits well with this kind of role. In fact, when a sudden grant deadline required an intense push, Qiu found herself willingly working through holidays and weekends – and enjoying it – because she believed in the project’s importance. Knowing that her work could help improve the lives of women in Bangladesh made the long hours feel worthwhile.

She feels that having this research experience gives her an edge, as she is now more familiar with what graduate-level research entails compared to many peers applying without such exposure. And even for classmates not pursuing academia, Qiu noted, the advanced data analysis and coding practice gained through the RAship are valuable skills for analytic roles in the private sector. Her advice to future IDE students is not to be deterred by a lack of prior experience. 

“Before working with Dr. Buchmann, I didn’t know Stata at all – I attended an hour-and-a-half Stata workshop, and the next day I was coding in Stata. Now I’m very proficient in it. Even if you don’t have experience, do it, because you learn a lot from it,” Qiu said.

 

Economic Development in Ghana & more - Brian Shih, IDE '20

Project Description:

As a research assistant, Shih supported multiple different projects focused on economic development. For one of his primary projects, he worked on a team led by Professor Christopher Udry at Northwestern, who is also the former chair of the Yale economics department and former EGC affiliate, to curate and analyze panel data from a large-scale, nation-wide panel survey in Ghana conducted by EGC and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana, Legon. Meanwhile, he also assisted Professors Costas Meghir and Orazio Attanasio on a randomized control trial study assessing the effects of various interventions on early childhood development in Odisha, India. Specifically, the research assessed the effectiveness of weekly home visits and mother-child group sessions on a variety of outcomes including child cognition, language, motor development, growth and morbidity.

In addition to his empirical work, he also had the opportunity to interview Professor Michael Peters about his research on firm dynamics in developing countries. Looking back, he appreciated the variety of different projects he had the opportunity to work on. “The projects I worked on were quite different in nature,” Shih said. “Some were quite structured, while others were in earlier stages of development and had more flexibility.”

Program Takeaways:

In his experience, Shih felt educationally well-prepared to pursue additional economic research work, but as a student, he lacked further hands-on research experience. For him, the IDE Research Assistantship program was the perfect opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and experiences to pursue a PhD later on. Looking back, he reiterated the value of the robust Stata training he received at the beginning of the program. He also recalls the importance of just being able to explore the different panels of data and critically thinking about how to work with large datasets to answer economic research questions. Now, as Shih applies for PhD programs, he points to the research assistantship program as an invaluable experience during his time at Yale. “It can be hard to get research experience, especially during the pandemic, but this experience adds to my CV, and it has a lot of weight,” he said.

Labor Market Barriers for Women in India - Aishwarya Venkat, IDE '25

Project Description:

During her time as a research assistant for Dr. Ardina Hasanbasri, Venkat worked on a project examining the barriers women face in entering the labor market in India. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, she helped estimate the “entry costs” that women encounter when trying to join the workforce. One aspect of the research explored the impact of motherhood on women’s employment – for example, how the number of children or the age at which a woman has children affects her ability to enter the labor market and the number of hours she can work given increased childcare responsibilities. Venkat noticed interesting patterns in the data: for certain social groups, higher levels of education initially correlated with lower labor force participation before it eventually increased, a non-uniform trend that prompted deeper investigation into the underlying causes and sector-specific factors.

Venkat met with her mentor about once a week to discuss progress and next steps. Much of her early work involved exploratory data analysis – first learning the existing dataset and codebase, then building on it to produce new insights. Once she became familiar with the data, she generated graphs and visualizations to help answer the team’s research questions. For example, she charted how women’s labor force participation changes across different age groups and how women move in and out of the workforce at various life stages and education levels. These visualizations made the findings more accessible to non-technical audiences. Venkat initially found the intricacies of econometric modeling—especially implementing a Heckman selection model—quite daunting. However, after completing three intensive econometrics courses with Michael Boozer, IDE’s Director of Graduate Studies, she was able to turn those theoretical concepts into hands-on analytical tools. Venkat’s longstanding interest in gender dynamics in India drew her to this project in the first place. She even built on this experience for her IDE master’s thesis, which examined how an extension of maternity benefits in India affected women’s labor market outcomes across different sectors.

Program Takeaways:

By the end of the assistantship, she felt well-equipped to tackle unfamiliar problems – a mindset and skillset that she views as invaluable for her future academic and professional pursuits.  With Dr. Hasanbasri’s encouragement, Venkat ventured into using new analytical tools like GIS mapping to explore spatial dimensions of the data, despite having no prior background in GIS. By combining resources her mentor shared and self-driven experimentation, Venkat helped create maps visualizing regional variations in the study’s key characteristics. This hands-on experience of quickly learning new research tools and methods gave her a strong sense of confidence. 

“It’s been a very empowering experience in the sense that it’s given me the confidence to tackle something that I’ve never really seen before… When I started, I had absolutely no experience with Stata – now I’m so comfortable with Stata, I use it for everything.” Venkat said.

 

Non-Homotheticity in the Trade of Capital Goods - Sunteng Yu, IDE '24

Project Description:

During his research assistantship, Yu worked with IDE Co-Director Dr. Ana Cecilia Fieler on a project examining the global trade of capital goods through the lens of skill-biased technical change. The research aimed to understand patterns in the production, purchase, and use of capital goods worldwide, and to test whether the rising share of capital goods in international trade can help explain wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. To tackle these questions, he engaged in a four-stage process. He began with an extensive literature review, summarizing 50–70 relevant articles by leading economists such as Daron Acemoglu to build a strong theoretical foundation. Next, he moved on to data collection – gathering and combining information from multiple sources including World Bank development indicators, the Barro-Lee educational attainment dataset, United Nations trade data, and the Global Trade Analysis Project. After compiling the data, Yu cleaned and prepared the datasets using Stata, and then conducted empirical analysis to identify trends in capital vs. non-capital goods usage and production over time; for example, Japan’s dominant role in machinery production before the 1990s gave way to China’s surge in capital goods output after it joined the WTO in 2001.

He also appreciated the project’s collaborative and exploratory nature. “We discussed once a week, and she treated me as another scholar with equal status,” Yu said, explaining that their open-ended discussions allowed the research to evolve organically without preset conclusions.

Program Takeaways:

For Yu, the IDE Research Assistantship program offered a rare chance to gain hands-on experience with the complex datasets that global trade economists use every day. Equally important, Yu learned how to think like a scholar through this experience. At the project’s outset, even Dr. Fieler didn’t have a fixed plan for where the research would lead, so their weekly discussions became pure intellectual explorations. She treated him as an equal colleague, and together they critically examined data and methodologies from the literature with no predetermined goals or assumptions. They let the datasets and papers guide their direction, proceeding with no preset destination. This open-ended approach gave Yu a deeper appreciation for what economic research is all about — examining real-world developments while probing the deeper logic behind them, and using modern tools and theory to interpret trends or even predict future outcomes.

Beyond the research itself, Yu was also inspired by the work ethic he observed. Every time he walked into Dr. Fieler’s office, he was amazed by the books she was reading and the notes covering her whiteboard. Seeing her level of dedication showed him the curiosity it takes to pursue rigorous research.

“I gained a real experience – real exposure to the complexity of those data sets –and developed a toolkit to manage and to utilize the data. I think I learned the practical, quantitative skills to streamline a real project” said Yu.

 


 

Teaching Assistant (TA) position

A Teaching Assistant (TA) position with the Yale Economics Department, while it pays more per semester than the RA position, is more demanding, largely because there isn’t nearly the degree of flexibility, as time spent on grading/office hours/sections each week is fairly constant. (An alternate position is a "course prep" position. This requires less hours than a TA position and does not include teaching.)

We generally encourage students to hold off doing a TAship until their Spring semester so they have time to acclimate to the program workload. The Economics Department registrar is in charge of hiring TAs for Economics courses. Other schools and departments at Yale hire IDE students as TAs, notably the Yale School of Forestry, for their environmental economics classes, some elective course at the Yale School of Management, and the Global Affairs program, for their more economically intensive classes.

In the Undergraduate Department of Economics, while the exact details vary by class, TAs teach two sections each semester, with a ceiling of 40 students per section.