Six JISP scholars joined the Fund as summer interns in 2019. Some of them shared with us their takeaways and best experiences during the internship.
Yoko Shibuya
I was amazed by IMF’s open-minded culture to new technologies. My project team consisted of two data scientists and economists. We worked together closely and integrated new text analysis technique with economic framework to answer important economic questions.
Mina Taniguchi
By working on a research project with economists at the Fund, I learned it is important to have different angles on the issues in the research project. Knowing policy maker’s point of views especially helped me to address the research issues because they are sometimes overlooked in academia but are sometimes connected to an important implication of the research. The internship also gave me an opportunity to know how each department functions in the Fund, which was very helpful to understand the Fund.
Mai Hakamada
The best experience I had during the internship was the research project itself. I found the topic of the project; theoretically and empirically untangling the mechanism of lost recovery was challenging but very important from the perspective of both policy implications and academics. Since my advisors were very experienced and kind, working on research with them was a very precious experience as a researcher in terms of learning the way of generating and demonstrating the idea and observations. Besides, through the internship, I noticed unique advantages which IMF has. For example, IMF has unique and various resources of cumulated knowledge and database. Every economist is willing to share their knowledge and experiences, which will make projects and research efficient and productive.
Toshiaki Komatsu
Through interacting with amazing scholars at the Fund who possess both academic rigor and hands-on policy experience, I was able to learn how we can apply our graduate training in economics to the formation of actual economic policies around the world. After spending years in academia, I found it very exciting and refreshing to witness this mixture of research and policymaking, which we can hardly experience elsewhere.
Testimonials from JISP scholars who attended the summer internship in past years:
Ryoko Ito
The best experience for me was meeting very talented and inspiring people through the work at the Fund. This experience was refreshing and eye-opening to me, since networking opportunities in academia were relatively limited. This was also a good reminder that sharing knowledge and working with others can improve our productivity.
Shigeki Isogai
By looking into a specific region (in my case, sub-Saharan Africa), I learned that each country has its own characteristics and issues. Therefore, for policy work, there is no “one-fits-for-all” solution, and that precise knowledge on historical and institutional aspects of the country is needed.
Ayumu Ken Kikkawa
All the economists that I talked to had deep understandings on the practical side of economics. I felt this most strongly during my presentation in a seminar, when I received questions on how my model fit into countries with specific characteristics. This is a great experience one could hardly have in the academic world. Coming from academia where people work on their own research in near isolation, every moment I had here at the Fund was very exciting.
Akira Sasahara
By working on a project during my internship, I learned about the big agricultural productivity gaps across countries and the major contributors for the gaps. Staff in my division are doing very important analyses, which play a role in shaping economic policies in low-income countries. I felt I was a part of the policymaking process and it was a great experience for me.
Eri Ikeda
My internship helped me better understand the nature and inner workings of the Fund, and reconnect me to the real world after years in academia. My best experience during the internship was meeting and working with so many practitioners at the Fund. I learned a lot from their experiences, ways of thinking, and views on important issues. Discussions here following the Greek debt crisis provided me with a window into the difficult and complex world of crisis management—something I had never dreamed to observe so closely.
