Dr. Truong Thu Ha’s research interests stand at the nexus of education economics, school finance and inequality. One of her latest papers in the field of educational economics is titled “Educational expansion and the economic value of education in Vietnam: An instrument-free analysis”, published in the International Journal of Educational Research, a Journal Rankings in Q1 Scimago.
With her experience in teaching public
economics at the Faculty of Development Economics - VNU University of Economics and Business, Dr. Truong Thu Ha has taken a new approach to the relationship between
the expansion of higher education and the economic value of education in
Vietnam. The objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of higher
education expansion policies on the labor market. The author raised the
research question: Along with the easier access to university, will the
increase in the proportion of workers with a university
degree lead to an oversupply in the labor market? How has the
rate of return to higher education changed over the past 10 years since college admissions were limimited to a few brilliant
students until recently when many new universities have been
established and almost all institutions have increased their
enrollment quotas, making it a lot easier to get into?
In order to capture the relative measure of
education, instead of using a traditional instrumental
variable for policy, the
number of years of education of individuals within each cohort combination is
adjusted to be relative to the years of education that other individuals in the
same cohort have. Specifically, the number of years of formal education of
individuals in each cohort is recoded into a proportional score. In addition to
the variables that measure education, i.e., the main the absolute and relative
measures of education, because the paper is interested in how education
expansion (which results in more individual in the labor market that have a
university degree) influences the strength of the return to education, a
variable capturing the percentage of individuals by cohort that have a
university degree for each year is also used. This variable captures the degree
of the expansion of higher education at the cohort level for each year. The
study found that as higher education expands, the effect of the absolute
measure of the years of education on labor market outcomes does not differ, but
the effect of its positional measure on these outcomes does. Likewise, as
higher education expands, the effect of the absolute measure of higher education
graduation on labor market outcomes does not vary, but the effect of its
relative measure on these outcomes does. These findings support the idea that
the effect of relative educational position on labor market returns varies as
education expands and increases the proportion of graduates in the labor
market.
Dr. Truong Thu Ha is one of the lecturers who
delivere the first lesson of the “International Lecture Series” with the topic
"ODA and FDI in VIETNAM: Legals, achievements and bottlenecks", organized
by the Faculty of Economics and Development. The lecture series are held online
and have attracted the participation of professors at prestigious
universities in the US, Italy, Japan and lecturers of the Faculty of
Development Economics, UEB.