Research Analyst, Institute of International Finance

>> My name is Brent Harrison. I work as a research analyst at the Institute of International Finance. I work in the Latin America Department and recently just switched over from the Global Macroeconomic Analysis Department. So the Institute of International Finance is a membership organization, or an industry group, and all the big banks and insurance companies are our board of directors. So we kind of work for them and -- and do whatever direction they're looking to go in. So I, on the research analyst side, have a lot of meetings with the research teams at banks, trade groups, you know, world bank, IMF work in conjunction a lot with them. And then we put out reports and I get to cover countries. So my primary country coverage is Chile, as of right now. And then I help some of the senior economists and chief economists with the bigger countries like Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Columbia, so. Just have a real presence in the region. You know, smaller regional reports, or country-specific reports, more about four pages, ranges from anything from like really specific macro indicators to monetary and fiscal policy and kind of just broad stroke what's going on in the country. So for example, we visit the countries and the policy makers as well as CEOs, or research teams of the banks within the countries themselves. We do that -- it depends on the size of the country and what exactly is going on, but it can range from two trips a year to -- Brazil, we go maybe four times a year. So we sit down with the policy makers and then come up with these four-page to ten-page reports on what exactly is going in the country and, not only their view of what they're saying, but our interpretation of what's going on.