Nguyen, Ha

Person:
Nguyen, Ha

Development Research Group

Fields of Specialization

Financial Sector, Private Sector Development, Global Economy

ORCID

0000-0003-4549-035X

External Links

Google

Departments

Development Research Group

Last updated: June 3, 2024

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.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 17

Distributional Crowding Out Effects of Public Debt on Private Investment in Developing Economies
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03) Islam, Asif M.; Nguyen, Ha
The Covid-19 pandemic, followed by financial tightening due inflationary pressure, has raised public debt in developing economies as governments grapple with public health investments to curb the pandemic and collapse in revenues due to slower economic activity. The rise in debt may further disrupt the formal private sector in developing economies. Using two to three waves of panel firm-level data across developing economies, this study finds that higher public debt is correlated with low investment by formal private sector firms. The finding is largely driven by small and medium-size enterprises, domestic firms, and non-exporters — raising concerns about the distributional impacts. Potential channels are uncovered. High levels of debt reduced the accessibility of finance for private sector firms, limiting investment. Furthermore, a regulatory channel is observed. As public debt rises, firms spend more time with regulatory and tax officials, which is possibly indicative of higher efforts of governments to raise revenues. This channel is stronger for small and medium-size enterprises.
Borrowing to Keep Up (with the Joneses): Inequality, Debt, and Conspicuous Consumption
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-08) Banuri, Sheheryar; Nguyen, Ha
The quest for status is a powerful motivator, but does it affect inequality? This paper presents a novel lab experiment that was designed and conducted to identify the relationship between inequality, status signaling, debt, and conspicuous consumption. It reports three main findings: First, consumption increases when it is "conspicuous" (i.e. is both observable, and signals ability/status). Second, borrowing increases when consumption is conspicuous. More critically, this increase in loan-taking is driven by those at the bottom of the income distribution. Third, in the presence of conspicuous consumption, access to finance exacerbates inequality. The results point to a vicious cycle of inequality and costly borrowing.
The Cross-Country Magnitude and Determinants of Collateral Borrowing
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-03) Qian, Rong; Nguyen, Ha
Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey covering 6,800 firms across 43 developing countries, this paper investigates the prevalence and determinants of collateralized borrowing. It focuses on the following two aspects: (1) whether firms' loans from financial institutions require collateral (the extensive margin) and (2) the collateral value relative to the loan value (the intensive margin). On the first aspect, it finds that collateral borrowing is prevalent. On average, 73 percent of loans from financial institutions require collateral. Firms that are small or sell domestically are significantly less likely to pledge collateral. Shorter loans and loans from non-bank financial institutions are also less often associated with collateral. On the second aspect, it finds that on average the loan value is at least 72 percent of the collateral value. The only robust and significant determinants of the collateral value are the type of assets used for collateral. The analysis also checks whether countries' income and institutions affect collateralized borrowing. It finds that firms in countries with higher income and better institutions and credit information are significantly less likely to pledge collateral. These factors, however, have little impact on collateral values.
Correcting Real Exchange Rate Misalignment : Conceptual and Practical Issues
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Eden, Maya; Nguyen, Ha
This paper studies the issue of real exchange rate misalignment and the difficulties in settling international real exchange rate disputes. The authors show theoretically that determining when a country should be sanctioned for real exchange rate "manipulations" is difficult: in some situations a country's real exchange rate targeting can be beneficial to other countries, while in others it is not. Regardless, it is difficult to establish whether a misaligned real exchange rate is intentionally manipulated rather than unintentionally caused by other policies or by various distortions in the economy. The paper continues by illustrating the difficulty in measuring real exchange rate misalignment, and provides a critical assessment of existing methodologies. It concludes by proposing a new method for measuring real exchange rate misalignment based on differences in marginal products between producers of tradable and non-tradable goods.
Exchange Rate Volatility and FDI Inflows: Evidence from Cross-Country Panel Data
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06) Hanusch, Marek; Nguyen, Ha; Algu, Yashvir; Hanusch, Marek
Using a panel of 80 developing and developed countries for the period 1990-2015, this studyanalyses the relationship between exchange rate volatility and foreign direct investment (FDI)inflows. The results reveal a negative relationship between de facto exchange rate volatility andFDI. Reducing exchange rate volatility by 10 percent over one-year can boost FDI inflows—ceterisparibus—by an estimated 0.48 percentage points of GDP while the same reduction over the pastfive years can boost FDI inflows by 0.27 percentage points over the long-run. The results areapplied to the case of South Africa, which has been experiencing high volatility of the rand inrecent years. Reducing the rand's volatility to that of developing country peers, South Africa could boost FDI inflows by a potential of 0.25 percentage points of GDP.
Euro Currency Risk and the Geography of Debt Flows to Peripheral European Monetary Union Members
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06) Ersal-Kiziler, Eylem; Nguyen, Ha
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.
Does the Minimum Wage Affect Employment? Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-07) Wang, Liang Choon; Del Carpio, Ximena; Nguyen, Ha
Using survey data from the Indonesian manufacturing industry, this paper investigates the impact of minimum wage on employment and wages offered by Indonesian manufacturing firms from 1993 to 2006. It shows that the estimated effects of minimum wage on employment are positive within a province (i.e., with province fixed effects), but negative within a firm (i.e., with firm fixed effects), indicating the importance of using firm panel data to reduce the endogeneity bias in estimates. It finds significant heterogeneous effects of minimum-wage changes on employment. The employment effects of minimum wages are significant and negative among small firms and less educated workers, but not among large firms and workers with high school education and above. The negative employment impact is more severe for non-production workers than for production workers. The analysis also shows that the minimum wage disproportionally affects women: most of the non-production job losses are experienced by female workers. Lastly, the paper finds that the minimum wage is more correlated with the average wage of small firms than that of large firms, suggesting that minimum wages are more binding in small firms.
Global Imbalances : Origins and Prospects
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-08-01) Servén, Luis; Nguyen, Ha
This paper surveys the academic and policy debate on the origins of global imbalances, their prospects after the global crisis, and their policy implications. A conventional view of global imbalances considers them to primarily result from macroeconomic policies and cyclical forces that cause demand for goods to outstrip supply in the United States and other rich countries and that have the opposite effect in major emerging markets. An alternative view holds that global imbalances are the result of structural distortions and slow-changing factors that primarily affect assets markets. This paper reviews the analytical underpinnings of these two perspectives and the empirical evidence of their respective merits. The paper then assesses the outlook for global imbalances after the crisis, particularly in terms of policy action to reduce their magnitude. Policy intervention is warranted to the extent that the imbalances are driven by welfare-reducing distortions, but in this case, the primary target of policy intervention should be the distortions rather than the imbalances. Finally, the paper examines various forms of international spillovers that may call for multilateral action to limit global imbalances.
Calamities, Debt, and Growth in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04) Yuting Fan, Rachel; Lederman, Daniel; Nguyen, Ha; Rojas, Claudio J.
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.
Gradual Versus Big-Bang Devaluations: An Empirical Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10) Geiger, Michael; Nguyen, Ha; Nguyen, Houng
This paper examines the pros and cons of gradual versus big-bang approaches toward devaluations. It presents original empirical evidence regarding output, consumption, investment and trade balances associated with gradual and big-bang devaluation episodes. It finds that big-bang devaluations are associated with lower output, investment and consumption, while gradual devaluations are not associated with any contemporaneous drops. Five case studies of gradual devaluations are also conducted.