o Cesare Villiger

Cesare Villiger

Economist @ Swiss National Bank (SNB)
Master in Economics and Data Science @ UZH | ETH

"Enthusiastic, motivated and ambitious.
Always willing to learn new things and broaden my horizon.
I am very resilient and meticulous when it comes to problem solving and deepening what has been learnt."

I'm currently an economist in the Market Analysis Group at the SNB. I earned my master's in Economics and Data Science from UZH in 2025, after completing my bachelor's in Economics and Informatics there in 2021. My passion lies in applying quantitative and empirical methods to tackle macroeconomic questions. I'm particularly excited by how machine learning can enhance econometric techniques and uncover previously hidden insights. With extensive programming experience in R, Python, and Matlab, I'm always eager to explore new challenges and expand my expertise.

Experience

Cross-Market Analysis

Swiss National Bank (SNB)

ECONOMIST (100%)

  • Presented market development across various asset classes and policy recommendations to stakeholders and the governing board.
  • Represented the SNB in external market intelligence meetings.
  • Led quantitative and qualitative research projects supporting monetary policy implementation.
  • Executed monetary policy operations as FX trader.
Jun. 2024 – Present

Cross-Market Analysis

Swiss National Bank (SNB)

WORKING STUDENT (50%)

  • Contributed to quantitative and qualitative research projects for monetary policy implementation.
  • Executed monetary policy operations as FX trader.
Mar. 2024 – Jun. 2024

Implementation Analysis

Swiss National Bank (SNB)

INTERNSHIP (100%)

  • Conducted analyses of Swiss money and FX markets to support monetary policy implementation.
  • Executed monetary policy operations as FX trader.
Jul. 2023 – Mar. 2024

Analysis Foreign Exchange and Gold

Swiss National Bank (SNB)

INTERNSHIP (100%)

  • Transitioned to Implementation Analysis following internal reorganisation.
Feb. 2023 – Jul. 2023

University and Teaching

Teaching Assistant

Foundations of Data Science, Department of Informatics (UZH)
  • Managed and mentored student teams on practical tasks, responsible for preparation, grading, and correction of exams.
Sept. 2023 - Feb. 2024

Research and Teaching Assistant

Department of Banking & Finance (UZH)
  • Responsible Headcoach for the course \"Corporate Finance\" with over 400 students and MAS participants. Includes hosting exercise sessions, preparing course materials, learning videos, final exam, administration, and recruitment.
  • Co-creation and lecturing in the courses \"Climate Change Finance\" and \"eFundamentals of Programming\".
  • Data gathering and visualisation for professors at the Institute of Banking & Finance.
Sept. 2020 - now

Teaching Assistant

Sekundarschulhaus Neumünster, Zurich (UZH)
  • Teaching assistant for secondary school in Zurich. Responsible for informatics, mathematics, and languages (German, English, French).
Dez. 2017 - April 2018

Tutor

Boost the Support, Zurich (UZH)
  • Tutoring students ranging from grammar school preparation to university level in mathematics, German, and French.
Aug. 2016 - Sep. 2020

Education

Special Students Program: MSc in Data Science, Statistics and Economics

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH)

24/30 ECTS of electives courses expected to be completed at ETH, covering multivariate statistics, statistical regression and applied time series analysis.

Sept. 2022 - Feb. 2024

MA Economics and Data Science

University of Zurich (UZH)

Preliminary Average Grade: 5.8.

Feb. 2022 - Feb. 2024

BA Economics and Informatics

University of Zurich (UZH)  

Final Grade: 5.1 (magna cum laude).

Sept. 2018 - Feb. 2022

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (UZH)

Literaturgymnasium Zurich

Focus on Latin, Maths and English.

Mar. 2017 - Aug. 2017

Swiss Matura (UZH)

Literaturgymnasium Zurich

Focus on Latin, English, Maths and Music.

Mar. 2017 - Aug. 2017

Projects

Statistical Finance III

Semester Report: Multivariate t and the Expectation Maximisation Algorithm.   

In this report, we simulate random variates of the multivariate t distribution and use the MMF algorithm, an improvement on the EM algorithm, to estimate its paramters. We compare the estimate to the ones given by MLE and weighted estimates thereof.

BachelorThesis

Statistical Finance II

Semester Report: Bootstrap for Expected Shortfall of Noncentral t.   

In this report, we simulate random variates for the noncentral t distribution and copmare the coverage accuracies of confidence intervals for the expected shortfall based on the parametric and non-parametric bootstrap.

BachelorThesis

Statistical Finance I

Semester Report: Expected Shortfall of Stable Paretian Distribution.   

In this report, we simulate the stable Paretian distribution and sums thereof for different tail indices and compare the theoretical to the empirical expected shortfall.

BachelorThesis

Bachelor Thesis

Estimation of influence of railway construction on Swiss GDP using extended generalised method of moments framework.   

Absract: Absract: This paper examines the influence of railway construction on economic growth in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century. The data refers to 191 districts of Switzerland over a period of five decades. In the estimation of a dynamic panel model, an endogeneity problem between the error terms and the lagged dependent variable arises (Nickell, 1981). This problem can be solved by a generalised method of moments estimator (GMM), which uses lags of the regressors as instruments. This paper uses a system GMM estimator according to Blundell and Bond (1998), which yields a significantly negative estimator for the aggregate effect across all districts. The disaggregated effect for the largest districts is, however, significantly positive. This suggests that certain districts have used railway construction to their advantage and were able to maintain this advantage over the entire period under consideration.

BachelorThesis
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