Citadel's pitch to students: Advise Central Banks what to do next

You don't have to work for the US or British central banks to present your opinions on monetary policy. Nor do you need an internship with US hedge fund Citadel to impress the head of its fixed income business. If you're a current university student, both things can be achieved simply by entering a single competition.

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Following last year's inaugural 'Fixed income and macro Central Bank challenge', which was open only to students in the US and Canada, Citadel is back with two similarly named challenges open to first and second year students in the US, Canada and Europe.  

Winners of the challenges receive cash prizes. They will also get to interact with Edwin Lin, Citadel's head of fixed income and macro. Lin returned from his brief sabbatical last year. He will be an active participant in the competition, as will Angel Ubide, Citadel's head of economic research for his business area.

Select competition entrants will work in small teams to develop monetary recommendations, before defending their thinking and presenting to a panel. Last year's winning team included Esther Yu, a physics and maths student at the University of North Carolina who coincidentally also won a previous women's datathon organised by Citadel.

Writing on LinkedIn, Yu says her team used "VAR models, a DSGE [Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium] simulation, and a modified Taylor Rule to weigh inflation risks against complex supply-side shocks and evolving labor market dynamics." Another member of Yu's team is an intern on Citadel's fixed income and macro team this summer.

Entrants have until February 27th to enter the US competition and until March 6th to enter in the UK. Last year, Yu says over 1,500 people entered in the US; 40 were selected to participate. Citadel says it's keen to hear from people studying mathematics, economics, statistics, computer science, or other STEM related fields.

Would-be entrants might want to familiarize themselves with the opinions of Ubide. Last September, Ubide declared that the US economy is in a fragile equilibrium and "close to the edge," with Treasury yields the key long term indicator of the proximity of the chasm. 

"Any rapid move above 5% [in long term Treasury yields] could be scary for risk assets,” added Ubide. That rate is currently 4.8%. If you're pitching monetary policy ideas, you might want to keep this in mind.

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