Mario Holzner is the executive director at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw). He also coordinates the development and communication of economic policy, particularly focused on European economic policy. He earned his PhD in economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2005 and is currently pursuing historical studies at the Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna. In recent years, he has worked on infrastructure investment in greater Europe and proposed the concept of a European Silk Road. As a 2023 DG GROW Fellow, he authored an essay advocating for a Catalytic Industrial Policy (CIP) aimed at maximizing positive outcomes in three areas—green, digital, and social—to accelerate their realisation.
His earlier research was focussing on international trade, wage bargaining coordination, taxation and labour costs, pension systems, social housing, state aid and competitiveness, the effects of EU accession and regional economic cooperation, with a geographical focus on Southeast Europe. Between 2009 and 2021, he was also lecturing applied econometrics in the economics bachelor and diploma degree programme at the Department of Economics at the University of Vienna.
He is also member of a number of advisory bodies and editorial boards. He is inter alia Board Member of the Austrian Society for European Politics (OeGfE); Board Member of the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET); Member of the International Advisory Board of the Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade (IEN); Member of the programme committee of the Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe (CFA/ÖFZ); Member of the Pezinok Group on Strategic Autonomy; Visiting Scholar of the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business; Member of the Advisory Board of the European Voices magazine; Member of the Editorial Board of the 'Economic Systems' journal; Member of the Editorial Board of the 'Croatian Economic Survey' journal; Member of the Editorial Board of the 'Economic Thought and Practice' journal.
He is also regularly refereeing e.g. for the following peer reviewed academic journals: Cambridge Journal of Economics, Eastern European Economics, Economic Modelling, Economic Systems, Empirica, Europe-Asia Studies, Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Post-Communist Economies, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, The World Economy.