Nicolas has been a contributor to the Banque de France Chair at PSE (since 2010) and to the SCOR-PSE first research partnership (since 2013). Since 2017, he has been deputy scientific director for Social Sciences and Humanities with the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. He held visiting positions with the University of California, Los Angeles, and New York University Abu Dhabi. His research is on the determinants of productivity, the macroeconomic consequences of market imperfections, stabilization policies, and was published in journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, Labour Economics, Economics Letters, among others.