About
Nikolas Mayer
I am a Czech economist and macroeconomic forecaster. I spent seven years at the European Central Bank, followed by roles at the European Commission and European Parliament. My work has covered macroeconomic forecasting, financial markets, financial stability, banking supervision and European economic policy. I now use this experience in my own data-driven analysis of the Czech economy and its performance in European comparison.
Complete CV
May 2025–Sep 2026
European Parliament
Economic Adviser
- At the European Parliament I worked in a political-group secretariat on economic, financial-services and budgetary policy.
- For selected files the work went well beyond monitoring: I analysed Commission proposals article by article, prepared technical and negotiating positions, drafted amendments, developed voting recommendations and assessed compromise options.
- I followed ECON and BUDG procedures from the Commission proposal through amendment deadlines and technical negotiations to committee or plenary votes.
2022–2025
European Commission — DG ECFIN
Economic Analyst
- In DG ECFIN I worked as an Economic Analyst in a country-desk environment, organisationally in G1 covering Czechia, Poland and Slovakia, while individual country responsibilities evolved and included substantial work on Slovakia, Malta and Czechia.
- I prepared official Commission macroeconomic forecasts using national accounts and high-frequency indicators, covering GDP and its components, inflation, labour markets, wages, external balances and public finances.
- I also organised and participated in forecast missions and worked on the European Semester, the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure, fiscal surveillance and the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
2021–2022
European Central Bank
Financial Stability Analyst — Macroprudential Policy
- In the ECB's Macroprudential Policy Division I worked on quantitative financial-stability analysis and the relationship between bank capital requirements and credit supply.
- The principal pandemic project examined whether banks close to regulatory capital constraints reduced new lending and how effective actual capital-requirement relief was in supporting credit supply.
- I linked granular AnaCredit loan data with supervisory bank time series, liquidity and other financial indicators.
2019–2021
European Central Bank
Market Operations Analyst — Bond and International Markets
- In the ECB's Bond and International Markets Division I worked directly with financial markets and central-bank portfolios.
- I prepared statistical analysis of market developments for the bond-market team and material for the Executive Board, contributed to investment strategy for the ECB's foreign-exchange fixed-income portfolio and monitored its performance and risks.
- The role included compilation and dissemination of data on managed portfolios and foreign-exchange interventions, including database architecture, and policy work on foreign exchange and asset-purchase programmes.
2016–2019
European Central Bank
Research Analyst — Supervisory Banking Statistics
- In ECB Supervisory Banking Statistics I worked on the data infrastructure supporting the Single Supervisory Mechanism.
- Responsibilities included collecting data from national authorities, processing and validating it and disseminating it to the Statistical Data Warehouse and the European Banking Authority.
- I also analysed how financial and market developments affected banks' balance sheets and portfolios and developed technical infrastructure for capital, liquidity, credit-risk, stress-test and data-quality indicators.
2015–2016
ECB / European Systemic Risk Board Secretariat
Trainee — systemic-risk analysis
- At the Secretariat of the European Systemic Risk Board, which is staffed and supported by the ECB, I worked on cross-cutting systemic-risk analysis of the European financial system.
- One major responsibility was the Systemic Risk Survey: collecting assessments from participating authorities, consolidating and visualising the results and helping automate a process that had previously relied heavily on manual Excel work.
- I also analysed risks in bank portfolios, real estate, insurers and pension funds and prepared material for the ESRB General Board.
2014–2015
European Commission — DG ECFIN
Trainee — macroeconomic imbalances
- During my DG ECFIN traineeship I worked on macroeconomic imbalances in Sweden and the United Kingdom.
- Responsibilities included developing econometric models, updating quantitative methodology and providing statistical and analytical support to the principal country-surveillance publications.
- The strongest identifiable public output is the 2015 Sweden Country Report, whose section on shock transmission uses “a model developed by the European Commission” to estimate the effects of housing-price declines and interest-rate increases.
2013
Boston Consulting Group
Visiting Associate
- At Boston Consulting Group in Prague I worked as a Visiting Associate on a strategy engagement for the launch of a new mobile-network operator.
- My work focused on quantitative analysis of the competitive market environment, market structure, pricing levels and development of the prospective operator's pricing strategy.
- In addition to analytical work, I had responsibilities directly within the client team, combining desk research and data analysis with translation of the findings into concrete strategic decisions.
2012
Arthur D. Little
Research Analyst — summer internship
- At Arthur D. Little in Prague I worked as a research analyst on a strategy engagement for a large Eastern European utility.
- I performed statistical analysis of financial data and company assets as input into a capital-investment strategy.
2011
Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the EU
Assistant — finance and trade policy
- At the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the European Union in Brussels I gained my first practical experience with EU legislation and Council negotiations.
- In the finance and trade-policy area I followed negotiations on post-financial-crisis financial regulation, analysed proposals from the perspective of Czech interests and prepared debriefing for the Czech Ministry of Finance.
- The files included the emerging CRD IV/CRR package implementing Basel III, the proposal on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories that later became EMIR, and the proposed EU regulation on short selling and credit default swaps.
2013–2016
University of St. Gallen
M.A. HSG in Quantitative Economics and Finance
- The M.A. HSG in Quantitative Economics and Finance at the University of St. Gallen combined advanced macroeconomics, microeconomics, mathematics, statistics, Econometrics I and II, microeconometrics, dynamic programming, asset pricing and theory of finance.
2010–2013
London School of Economics and Political Science
BSc Government and Economics, Upper Second Class Honours
- At the London School of Economics and Political Science I completed the BSc Government and Economics with Upper Second Class Honours.
- The degree combined economics, quantitative methods and political science and included mathematics, statistics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, advanced economics and game theory.
- This interdisciplinary combination provided the foundation for later work on European economic policy, where technical analysis has to be combined with understanding of political and institutional decision-making.
2009–2010
University of Warwick
Economics, Politics and International Studies — first year
- In the 2009–2010 academic year I studied Economics, Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
- The first year included economics, mathematics, statistics, computing and data analysis.
- After successfully passing all first-year examinations I transferred to the London School of Economics, where I subsequently completed the BSc Government and Economics.
graduated 2009
Gymnázium Matyáše Lercha, Brno
Six-year bilingual grammar school — French science-oriented section
- Six-year bilingual grammar-school programme with a general-to-science orientation.
- Intensive French followed by selected subjects taught in French.
- French-medium subjects included mathematics, physics, chemistry, history and geography.
- Final examinations included French language and literature, mathematics, physics and geography in French, plus English, mathematics and Czech language and literature.