PhD defence by Thanh Tung Nguyen

Entitled 'Merchandise trade openness, export competitiveness, bilateral trade agreements and public-private partnerships for infrastructure development: Revisiting sovereign debt sustainability in low- and middle-income countries', Thanh Tung Nguyen argues that estimations of the cost of achieving the SDGs are based on pre-pandemic scenarios and therefore underestimate the current costs.

He puts forward three arguments for this:

1. Compared to pre-pandemic calculations, current global economic conditions and the geopolitical context exacerbate upward pressures on government expenditures.
2. Domestic economic performance and export activities in low- and middle-income countries have been detrimentally affected by lingering impacts of the pandemic, as well as by the increasing uncertainty in the global economy.
3. Recent outflows of international capital from low- and middle-income countries have led to severe shortages of financial resources for domestic investment.

He argues that now is the time to revisit analysis of the interactions between merchandise trade openness, industrial employment and manufacturing exports, bilateral trade agreements and infrastructure development, and the sustainability of public external debt in low- and middle-income countries.

Doctoral Board

Chair

Professor Ruard Ganzevoort

Doctoral dissertation supervisors

• Professor Mansoob Murshed, ISS
• Professor Nguyen Trong Hoai, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City 

Full Doctoral Committee

• Dr Pham Khanh Nam, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City
• Dr Edward Anderson, University of East Anglia
• Professor Natascha Wagner, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen,
• Professor Irene van Staveren, ISS
• Professor Andrew Fischer, ISS
• Professor Arjun Bedi, ISS