Senior Research Fellow
PhD
Ha Nguyen is a Senior Research Fellow at Telethon Kids Institute. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the ARC Life Course Centre and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Child Health Research, the University of Western Australia. He received his PhD in economics from the Australian National University and has previously held academic and teaching appointments at the Australian National University, University of Queensland, University of New South Wales and Curtin University.
He has published widely in both academic and policy outlets, with articles appearing in high-ranking economics journals, including Journal of International Economics, Health Economics, American Journal of Health Economics, Social Science & Medicine, Labour Economics, Journal of Population Economics, Economics of Education Review and Economic Record. The results of his research have been featured in numerous national and international media outlets. Ha has been awarded The Pacific Trade and Development Fellowship, one of the most distinguished fellowships available to young researchers in the field of trade and development. He also received the Curtin Faculty of Business and Law’s 2017 Article of the Year Award and Curtin Business School’s 2015 Article of the Year Award. He has collaborated on a number of research projects funded through grants awarded by the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and various Federal Departments.
His general research interests have focused on applied econometrics, particularly in the fields of health economics and labour economics. His particular research interests and expertise cover a broad range of topics, including economic and social policy evaluation, intergenerational transmission in health and human capital, child development, mental health and wellbeing, the economics of informal care, health insurance, health care use, the economics of migration, employment and labour market participation, population ageing, and the impact of macroeconomics (including exchange rates) and climate changes on individual behaviours.
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Projects
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Publications
May 2024
The effects of sleep duration on child health and development
Children and adolescents spend more than one-third of their time sleeping. Yet, we know little about the causal impact of sleeping on their development. This paper is the first to exploit variation in local daily daylight duration measured on pre-determined diary dates across the same individuals through time as an instrument in an individual fixed effects regression model to draw causal estimates of sleep duration on a comprehensive set of child development indicators.
Published research Human Development and Community WellbeingMarch 2024Retirement, housing mobility, downsizing and neighbourhood quality - A causal investigation
This paper provides the first causal evidence on the impact of retirement on housing choices. Our empirical strategy exploits the discontinuity in the eligibility ages for state pension as an instrument for the endogenous retirement decision and controls for time-invariant individual characteristics. The results show that retirement leads to a statistically significant and sizable increase in the probability of making a residential move or the likelihood of becoming outright homeowners.
Published research Human Development and Community WellbeingAugust 2023The causal impact of mental health on tobacco and alcohol consumption: An instrumental variables approach
The reciprocal relationship between psychiatric and substance use disorders is well-known, yet it remains largely unknown whether mental health morbidity causally leads to addictive behaviours. This paper utilises a fixed effects instrumental variables model, which is identified by time-varying sources of plausibly exogenous variations in mental health, and a nationally representative panel dataset from Australia to present robust evidence on the causal impact of mental distress on cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking behaviours.
Published research Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Mental healthAugust 2023Accuracy of self-reported private health insurance coverage
Studies on health insurance coverage often rely on measures self-reported by respondents, but the accuracy of such measures has not been thoroughly validated. This paper is the first to use linked Australian National Health Survey and administrative population tax data to explore the accuracy of self-reported private health insurance (PHI) coverage in survey data.
Published research Human Development and Community WellbeingJune 2022Causal Impact of Physical Activity on Child Health and Development
The relationship between physical activity and child health and development is well-documented, yet the extant literature provides limited causal insight into the amount of physical activity considered optimal for improving any given health or developmental outcome.
Published research Early Childhood Development Human Development and Community Wellbeing Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Child Physical Activity, Health and DevelopmentAugust 2022Gender differences in time allocation contribute to differences in developmental outcomes in children and adolescents
Using over 50 thousand time-use diaries from two cohorts of children, we document significant gender differences in time allocation in the first 16 years in life. Relative to males, females spend more time on personal care, chores and educational activities and less time on physical and media related activities. These gender gaps in time allocation appear at very young ages and widen overtime.
Published research Child Health, Development & Education Early Childhood Development Human Development and Community WellbeingJuly 2021The impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep of child-parent dyads - Life Course Centre Working Paper Series 2021
This study explores the differential impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep by children and their parents. We use nationally representative data with time use indicators objectively measured on multiple occasions for more than 1,100 child-parent pairs, coupled with daily meteorological data.
Published research Human Development and Community Wellbeing Child Physical Activity, Health and DevelopmentApril 2021Weather and children's time allocation
This paper presents the first causal estimates of the effect of weather on children's time allocation. It exploits exogenous variations in local weather observed during the random diary dates of two nationally representative cohorts of Australian children whose time-use diaries were surveyed biennially over 10 years.
Published research Early Childhood Development Human Development and Community WellbeingFebruary 2021Who's declining the "free lunch"? New evidence from the uptake of public child dental benefits
This study provides the first evidence on the determinants of uptake of two recent public dental benefit programs for Australian children and adolescents from disadvantaged families. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative survey linked to administrative data with accurate information on eligibility and uptake, we find that only a third of all eligible families actually claim their benefits.
Published research Academic Biostatistics Human Development and Community WellbeingMarch 2020Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Home Countries and Immigrants’ Well-Being: New Evidence from Down Under
Our findings suggest that immigrants in Australia have emotional or altruistic connections to their home countries
Published research Human Development and Community WellbeingSeptember 2018The Gender Wage Gap in the Vietnamese Transition, 1993–2008
This essay examines wages and the gender wage gap between 1993 and 2008 in Vietnam
Published research Human Development and Community Wellbeing -
Education and Qualifications
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Awards/Honours