With support from the Art Wright Seminar Fund, Dr. Dong Hwan Oh, a senior economist and quantitative risk analyst at the Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems of Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, spoke at the departmental Econometrics Seminar on Friday, October 7th.

Dr. Oh’s research focuses on analyzing financial markets and risk, as well as methodological development of forecasting and quantitative finance models. During this event, Dr. Oh presented his recent research paper, “Better the Devil You Know: Improved Forecasts from Imperfect Models”. The research paper proposes a new theory and empirical approach for improving the forecasting of financial and macroeconomic variables such as stock volatility, risk, and yield curve of the interest rates. The views expressed in this research are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve Board.

PhD students, MSQE students from advanced econometrics and programming classes, and a focused group of undergraduates were invited to participate in the seminar.  At the beginning of the talk, Dr. Oh recommended that students invest in quantitative data skills on the foundation of econometrics, which can give them great returns when they apply to research assistant/internship positions in the Federal Reserve and other financial institution. Also, through this opportunity, the faculty in the econometrics group were able to actively interact with an expert in financial market analysis, which can help them advise those students with career goals in financial industries.