Nguyen, Trang Van

Person:
Nguyen, Trang Van

Global Practice on Poverty, The World Bank

Author Name Variants

Nguyen, Trang Van, Nguyen, Trang

Fields of Specialization

Labor, Poverty and inequality, Gender and development

Departments

Global Practice on Poverty, The World Bank

Last updated:October 20, 2025

Biography

Trang Van Nguyen is a senior economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Department at the World Bank. Previously, she worked in the East Asia and Pacific, Africa, and Europe and Central Asia Regions of the World Bank, in the areas of labor, poverty and inequality, education, health, social protection, and gender and development. Nguyen is one of the lead authors of the World Bank’s regional flagship report, East Asia Pacific at Work: Employment, Enterprise, and Well-being. Trang is also coauthor of two other World Bank flagship publications: Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific: A Companion to the World Development Report (2012) on gender equality and development and International Migration and Development in the East Asia and Pacific Region. She holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 8 of 8

Public Preferences for Economic Reforms Are Shaped More by Design Than Cost
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-17) Hoy, Christopher; Kim, Yeon Soo; Imtiaz, Saad; Rojas Mendez, Ana Maria; Meyer, Moritz; Canavire Bacarreza, Gustavo Javier; Kim, Lydia; Seitz, William Hutchins; Helmy, Imane; Uochi, Ikuko; Touray, Sering; Singh, Juni; Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko; Pape, Utz Johann; Fuchs, Alan; Nguyen, Trang Van; Gencer, Defne; Lee, Min A; Sagesaka, Akiko; Contreras, Ivette
Public opposition is a major barrier to economic reforms, such as subsidy removal. Using multilayered, randomized survey experiments with 10,000 respondents across ten surveys in five countries, this paper shows that opposition to energy price reforms is shaped more by design and communication than by cost. Around 70 percent of respondents strongly opposed a 100 percent immediate price increase, but resistance was nearly halved when reforms were phased in, targeted at high-energy consumers, or paired with compensation. Informational messages also reduced opposition by as much as halving the price increase. An expert prediction survey revealed systematic misunderstandings: specialists underestimated the influence of design features and greatly misperceived coping strategies and compensation preferences. These findings demonstrate that behavioral biases—such as present bias, loss aversion, and fairness heuristics—are as influential as economic costs in shaping people’s opposition to economic reforms, underscoring the importance of careful design and communication of politically sensitive reforms.
Climate and Equity: A Framework to Understand Welfare Impacts and Guide Policy Action
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-18) Hill, Ruth; Nguyen, Trang; Doan, Miki Khanh
Reducing the impact of climate change on poor and vulnerable households is essential for hastening poverty reduction. In thinking about policies that do this, it is useful to apply the same hazard, exposure, and vulnerability framework that is often used to understand the physical impacts of climate change and add the non-climate benefits and costs to households that these policies can also bring. Policies that reduce hazards and/or vulnerability while bringing non-climate benefits should be prioritized where possible. However, some development policies that bring non-climate benefits, particularly in higher-income and higher growth countries, may increase emissions by enough to worsen future hazards, so their emissions impact needs to be managed with compensating actions. Policies that reduce the hazards faced by poor households are needed, and the non-climate cost of these policies on poor people should be minimized or compensated where it cannot be avoided.
Climate and Equity: A Framework to Guide Policy Action
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-06) Brunckhorst, Ben; Hill, Ruth; Mansuri, Ghazala; Nguyen, Trang; Doan, Miki
Reducing the impact of climate change on poor and vulnerable households is essential to hastening poverty reduction. In thinking about policies that do this, it is useful to apply the same hazard, exposure and vulnerability framework that is often used to understand the physical impacts of climate change and add the non-climate benefits and costs to households that these policies can also bring. Policies that reduce hazards and vulnerability whilst bringing non-climate benefits—triple win policies—are not very common, but where possible they should be prioritized. Policies that reduce vulnerability and bring non-climate benefits are more common. However, some development policies that bring non-climate benefits, particularly in higher-income and higher-growth countries, may increase emissions by enough to worsen future hazards, so their emissions impact needs to be managed with compensating actions. Policies that reduce the hazards faced by poor households are needed, and the non-climate cost of these policies on poor people should be minimized or compensated where it cannot be avoided.
Serbia’s New Growth Agenda: Labor Market for Growth
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03-26) Reyes, Gonzalo; Nguyen, Trang
Addressing Serbia’s labor market problems is critical to enhancing growth and job creation. Low labor force participation, relatively high unemployment, particularly among youth and other disadvantaged groups, and rising skills gaps currently impede efficient use of human capital and the prospects for sustained economic growth and welfare improvements. Although there has been progress, more jobs are needed if Serbia is to catch up with neighboring countries in the European Union (EU). Robust growth in employment will require a comprehensive agenda: boosting private sector job creation on the demand side; reducing barriers and disincentives to work and improving worker skills on the supply side; and ensuring that labor market intermediation and institutions facilitate employer-employee matches. This note focuses on current labor market performance and on skills and labor market policies to support inclusive growth. Employment in Serbia’s formal private sector is low; the full workforce potential is underutilized; and labor productivity and real wages have been relatively flat. Improving skills and reforming labor market policies can boost both employment and productivity. This note’s focus on skills and labor taxation, regulation, and intermediation allows it to discuss specific policy actions to support Serbia’s New Growth Agenda. Tackling these issues will not only enhance Serbia’s human capital and productivity for higher growth but will also boost people’s incomes, reduce poverty, and grow the middle class.
From Commodity Discovery to Production
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09) Khan, Tehmina; Nguyen, Trang; Ohnsorge, Franziska; Schodde, Richard
Major resource discoveries have transformed growth prospects for many low-income countries. However, the sharp downturn in commodity prices in recent years is affecting resource investment in these countries, and may delay the development of recent discoveries into production. This study investigates lead times from discovery to production for a unique data set of gold and copper discoveries worldwide during 1950-2014. The study employs standard parametric and nonparametric duration analysis. The results suggest an important role for copper prices; for instance, an upswing at the time of discovery can hasten the development of the mine by two to three years in low-income countries. There appears to be a similarly beneficial impact on lead times of sounder macroeconomic policies and quality of governance.
International Migration and Development in East Asia and the Pacific
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-10-15) Ahsan, Ahmad; Abella, Manolo; Beath, Andrew; Huang, Yukon; Luthria, Manjula; Nguyen, Trang Van
The East Asia and Pacific region has an international emigrant population of over 21 million people, who remitted more than USD 90 billion to their home countries in 2010. The region also hosts more than 7 million migrant workers, mostly from other Asian countries. These migrant workers account for 20 percent or more of the labor force in economies such as Malaysia and Singapore and thus play a significant role in the economies of the labor-receiving countries. The aging of the population in many East Asian countries will create significant labor shortages leading to greater demand for migrant workers. For these reasons, international labor mobility is emerging as an important development issue in East Asia with important implications for the Bank’s mission of poverty reduction and supporting sustainable economic development in the region. In this context , this study analyzes the impact of migration on development of the region and how international migration should be managed in East Asia in a way that supports development goals while simultaneously protecting the rights of migrants. The study covers: trends in international migration in East Asia and overarching regional issues such as the links between macroeconomic management and remittances and the role of demographic trends in migration; the economic impact of migration and remittances on labor-sending countries and labor-receiving countries; the migration industry; and the policies and institutions that govern migration.
Impacts of International Migration and Remittances on Child Outcomes and Labor Supply in Indonesia : How Does Gender Matter?
(2011-03-01) Purnamasari, Ririn; Nguyen, Trang
This paper aims to investigate empirically how international migration and remittances in Indonesia, particularly female migration, affect child outcomes and labor supply behavior in sending households. The authors analyze the Indonesia Family Life Survey data set and apply an instrumental variable estimation method, using historical migration networks as instruments for migration and remittance receipts. The study finds that, in Indonesia, the impacts of international migration on sending households are likely to vary depending on the gender of the migrants. On average, migration reduces the working hours of remaining household members, but this effect is not observed in households with female migrants. At the same time, female migration and their remittances tend to reduce child labor. The estimated impacts of migration and remittances on school enrollment are not statistically significant, but this result is interesting in that the directions of the effects can be opposite when the migrant is male or female
Managing for Results in Primary Education in Madagascar : Evaluating the Impact of Selected Workflow Interventions
(World Bank, 2010-08-30) Lassibille, Gérard; Tan, Jee-Peng; Jesse, Cornelia; Nguyen, Trang Van
The impact of specific actions designed to streamline and tighten the workflow processes of key actors in Madagascar's primary education sector are evaluated. To inform the strategy for scaling up, a randomized experiment was carried out over two school years. The results show that interventions at the school level, reinforced by interventions at the subdistrict and district levels, succeeded in changing the behavior of the actors toward better management of key pedagogical functions. In terms of education outcomes, the interventions improved school attendance, reduced grade repetition, and raised test scores (particularly in Malagasy and mathematics), although the gains in learning at the end of the evaluation period were not always statistically significant. Interventions limited to the subdistrict and district levels proved largely ineffective.