Person:
Nguyen, Ha
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Financial Sector,
Private Sector Development,
Global Economy
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
Departments
Development Research Group
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
July 5, 2023
Biography
Ha Minh Nguyen is an Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth Team of the Development Research Group. He joined the Bank in July 2009 as a Young Economist after earning a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He also holds a M.A. and B.A. in economics from The University of Adelaide, Australia. His research interests include International Finance and Economic Growth. His current research is on the financial crisis and the real exchange rates.
Publication Search Results
1 - 5 of 5
-
Publication
Euro Currency Risk and the Geography of Debt Flows to Peripheral European Monetary Union Members
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06)The pattern of debt flows to peripheral European Monetary Union members seems puzzling: they are mostly indirect and channeled through the large countries of the European Monetary Union. This paper examines to what extent the introduction of the euro and the elimination of the intra-area currency risk can explain this puzzle. A three-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework with endogenous portfolio choice and two currencies is developed. In the equilibrium, the core members of the European Monetary Union emerge as the main group of lenders to the peripheral European Monetary Union members. Outside lenders are pushed from the periphery debt markets because of currency risk. The model generates a pattern of debt flows consistent with the data despite the absence of any exogenous frictions or market segmentations. -
Publication
Calamities, Debt, and Growth in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04)Public debt in developing economies rose at a fast clip during 2020–21, at least partly due to the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman opined in early 2021 that “fighting covid is like fighting a war.” This paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic shares many traits with natural disasters, except for the global nature of the pandemic shock. This paper empirically examines trends in debt and economic growth around the onset of three types of calamities, namely natural disasters, armed conflicts, and external-debt distress in developing countries. The estimations provide quantitative estimates of differences in growth and debt trends in economies suffering episodes of calamities relative to the trends observed in economies not experiencing calamities. The paper finds that debt and growth evolve quite differently depending on the type of calamity. The evidence indicates that public debt and output growth tend to rise faster after natural disasters than in the counterfactual scenario without disasters, thus illustrating how debt-financed fiscal expansions can help economic reconstruction. The findings are different for episodes of debt distress defined as periods of debt restructuring, however. Economies experiencing debt distress are associated with growth trends that are on average below the growth rates of unaffected economies prior to and after the beginning of an episode of debt restructuring. -
Publication
From #Hashtags to Legislation: Engagement and Support for Economic Reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)Ownership of reforms by citizens is often presented as important for success. This paper explores media engagement and support for economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries using text analysis techniques on publicly available sources. The results show that while reform efforts have intensified in recent years in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, these efforts tend to focus on stronger rather than weaker policy areas, potentially limiting the growth-enhancing effect of reforms. Social media analysis using Twitter shows that the population's support for reforms has been declining. The analysis of traditional news media points to more engagement by international than by local media. However, sentiment from international media is less positive about economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Sentiment in international media and social media matters, as evidenced by its positive and strong correlation with foreign direct investment inflows into the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. -
Publication
Corporate Debt and Stock Returns: Evidence from U.S. Firms during the 2020 Oil Crash
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)This paper explores the effect of oil price fluctuations on the stock returns of U.S. oil firms using an identification strategy through heteroskedasticity, exploiting the 2020 oil price crash. The results are twofold. First, a decline in oil prices significantly reduces oil firms’ stock returns. On average, a 1 percent decline in oil prices leads to a 0.44 percent decline in stock prices. Second, firm debt appears irrelevant in mediating the effect of oil prices on oil firms’ stock returns. Moreover, the muted role of debt was not likely caused by the liquidity backstop provided by the Federal Reserve. -
Publication
Female-Worker Representation Effect: Gender Pay Variation in the Kuwaiti Civil Service
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-05)Kuwaiti women working in Kuwait’s civil service earn, on average, 18 percent less than Kuwaiti men. Using a unique data set of all Kuwaiti nationals working in Kuwait’s civil service, this paper analyzes the relationship between wages, gender, and the relative dominance of women in occupations and workplaces. The main finding is that an important portion of the association between gender and wages is explained not by human capital but by occupational and workplace segregation of men and women. Occupations with a higher ratio of women to men tend to have lower wages for both genders when compared to workers in occupations with a lower ratio of women to men. This finding is especially true for women. Workplaces with a higher female-to-male ratio exhibit lower male wages but slightly higher female wages than workplaces with lower female-to-male workplace ratios. The paper calls this latter novel finding the female-worker representation effect.