Thanh Ngo
@massey.ac.nz
School of Aviation
Massey University
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Thanh Ngo, Duc Khuong Nguyen, and Dinh-Tri Vo
SAGE Publications
The ongoing pandemic of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has exploded and raised important questions on the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare systems around the world to provide guidance for appropriate policy responses. While it is important to look at the current (and future) situation, it is also needed to look back into the past, especially at the first few months of the pandemic. This study re-examines the efficiency of healthcare systems around the world against the outbreak of COVID-19 in its first 62 days (23 January 2020–25 March 2020) to see if the examined countries were well prepared and well reacted to the pandemic. Results from a data envelopment analysis evaluation indicated that the global healthcare systems experienced a very low efficiency on average. Besides the absence of a coronavirus vaccine at that time, this low efficiency is typically linked to the operational scale of the healthcare systems, suggesting that countries could tightly rationalise their healthcare resources/inputs to improve the technical efficiency of their healthcare systems.
Thanh Ngo
Informa UK Limited
Tu DQ Le, Tin H Ho, Thanh Ngo, and Thu B Luu
Informa UK Limited
Ba Tam Le, Xuan Thi Thanh Mai, Thanh Ngo, and Tu D. Q. Le
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Abstract Although there are different ways to estimate the value of the illicit drug markets, the main issue remains that one cannot estimate the unseized or floating value of drugs at the country- and international-level markets. This study applies a novel estimation method that combines excess compensation estimation (from the financial field) and stochastic frontier analysis (from the operations research field) to estimate the value of the international cocaine market in 2019. Our estimations show that in 2019, the unseized market accounted for 32.16 % of the total market of cocaine and was smaller than the ratio of 48 % in 2007, indicating that the effectiveness of countries in disrupting the illicit cocaine market has improved. More importantly, we show that improvement in dealing with money laundering risks could also help reduce the illicit market of cocaine since illicit cocaine/drug proceeds must be laundered before they can be used by criminal organisations.
Tu Le, Thanh Ngo, Dat T. Nguyen, and Thuong T.M. Do
Emerald
PurposeThe financial system has witnessed the substantial growth of financial technology (fintech) firms. One of the strategies that banks have adopted to cope with this emergence is to cooperate with fintech firms. This study empirically investigated whether cooperation between banks and fintech companies would improve banks’ risk-adjusted returns.Design/methodology/approachWe developed a novel index of bank–fintech cooperation across various fintech sectors. A system generalized method of moments (GMM) was used to examine this relationship using a sample of Vietnamese banks from 2007 to 2019.FindingsThe findings show that the diversity of bank–fintech cooperation across seven sectors tends to enhance banks’ risk-adjusted returns. The results also highlight that this relationship may depend on the types of fintech sectors and bank ownership. More specifically, the positive association between this cooperation and banks’ risk-adjusted returns only holds in the comparison sector of fintech, whereas there is a negative relationship between them in the payments and mobile wallets sector. Furthermore, state-owned commercial banks that engage in more bank–fintech cooperation tend to generate greater earnings. If we look at listed banks, the positive effect of bank–fintech partnerships on risk-adjusted returns still holds. A similar result was also found in the case of large banks.Practical implicationsOur empirical evidence provides motivations for incumbent banks to implement appropriate strategies toward diversity in bank–fintech partnerships when fintech firms have engaged in various financial segments.Originality/valueThis study adds more evidence to the existing literature on the relationship between bank–fintech cooperation and bank performance.
, T. Ngo, W. H. K. Tsui, , H. Nguyen, and
Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the RAS
The study aims to revisit the relationship between aviation pollution, tourism, and economic development through the lens of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), particularly at the regional level, using New Zealand as a case study. We are the first to estimate aviation pollution at regional airports in New Zealand and use them as proxy for the regional pollution in an EKC setting. Our findings provide evidence of an EKC at New Zealand regions, indicating that tourism and economic development contribute to the long-term regional environment improvement. This highlights the necessity for environment policy to be tailored at a regional level, rather than solely at the national scale. Additionally, our research introduces a novel approach to EKC studies by incorporating new pollution estimations, which enhances the understanding of regional environmental dynamics. Among others, we discovered that that the sustainable tourism policy has, and will, work well in New Zealand. This study underscores the importance of considering regional factors in environmental policymaking and offers insights that could inform future strategies for balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability.
Isaac Levi Henderson, Kan Wai Hong Tsui, Thanh Ngo, Andrew Gilbey, and Mark Avis
MDPI AG
This study examines the nature of brand associations that air travellers form with airports and which associations are important when choosing between airports. Using semi-structured qualitative interviews, this study collected information about 240 participants’ most recent trips using air travel, encompassing 642 airport visits and 88 airports worldwide. The associations that participants made with the airports they travelled through were collected, as well as the sorts of associations that are important for choosing between airports and why those associations are important. The data were analysed using thematic analysis, revealing 13 themes each for airport brand associations and important associations for choosing between airports and 14 themes for reasons why those associations were important. Single-sample t-tests reveal that each of these themes has a different effect size in terms of its effect on airport brand association formation and its effect on attitudinal brand choice. This study contributes to the air transport and tourism literature by providing a detailed account of which associations air travellers form with airports and which are used for choosing between airports by contextualising these findings by viewing airports as compound brands. Managerial implications are also provided along with avenues for future research.
Thanh Ngo, David Tripe, and Duc Khuong Nguyen
Wiley
AbstractIn this paper, we propose a straightforward way to estimate the Fisher ideal total factor productivity (TFP) index (FI) in cases where price information is unavailable, using ‘shadow prices’ derived from data envelopment analysis (DEA). A Monte Carlo experiment shows that the shadow price Fisher ideal TFP index (SPFI) can effectively estimate the ‘true’ FI with relatively small (and stable) errors. The empirical application to the US agriculture sector (1948–2017) further suggests that the SPFI is a (superior) alternative to the traditional Malmquist DEA, especially in dealing with unbalanced panel or time series data when price data are unknown.
Hanjun Wu, Yi-Hsin Lin, Thanh Ngo, and Kan Wai Hong Tsui
Elsevier BV
Tu D. Q. Le, Dat T. Nguyen, and Thanh Ngo
MDPI AG
This study investigates the relationship between market power and bank profitability, and the impacts of CEOs’ personality traits, in Vietnam from 2007 to 2020. The analysis of CEOs’ signatures is used to determine their characteristics. The findings support the quiet-life hypothesis, which suggests that the negative relationship between market power and bank profitability may depend on CEOs’ characteristics. More specifically, the results show that conscientious CEOs with market power tend to reduce bank profitability, and this effect is more pronounced for foreign-owned banks. Therefore, our findings have critical implications for bank management.
Tobias Flatley, Kan Wai Hong Tsui, and Thanh Ngo
World Scientific Pub Co Pte Ltd
Due to the geographic location of Australia and New Zealand, air transport is the dominant mode of travel between the two nations and to and from the rest of the world. While the trans-Tasman air passenger market between the two countries has grown over the last 20 years, direct air routes to Australian destinations from New Zealand’s regional cities of Dunedin, Hamilton and Palmerston North have seen a major decline and, in most cases, the complete closure of those routes. This study uses the two-stage least squares (2SLS) gravity model to investigate the determinants of air passenger numbers on eight sampled city-pair routes. Empirical results show that for these trans-Tasman markets, expanded seat capacity has a strong positive impact on air passenger numbers. A longer driving time to travel to the nearest alternative international airport, the 2008/09 GFC and the winter season in New Zealand are also associated with an increase in air passenger numbers. In contrast, the presence of full-service network carriers has a negative impact on air passenger numbers.
Tu DQ. Le, Dat T. Nguyen, Tin H. Ho, and Thanh Ngo
Informa UK Limited
Sabri Boubaker, Thanh Ngo, Aristeidis Samitas, and David Tripe
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractThis study uses the multi-criteria decision-analysis (MCDA) approach to construct a composite performance index (CPI) directly from the CAMELS financial ratios. The CPI has several promising characteristics, such as (i) being an absolute measure of performance that allows for adding or removing data without affecting the existing scores; (ii) employing CAMELS ratios directly in its calculation without the need for normalization or imputation of positive values; (iii) employing the dynamic weighting system of data envelopment analysis (DEA); (iv) providing more robust insights on the Vietnamese banking system under the Shannon entropy approach; and (v) can be an alternative measure of bank stability, compared to the CAMELS ratings and z-scores. Based on a rich dataset of 45 Vietnamese banks spanning from 2002 to 2020, our findings suggest that the proposed CPI could offer an overall view consistent with other approaches for measuring banking sector performance and stability and identifying specific strengths and weaknesses of banks.
Norman Hutchison, Bryan MacGregor, Thanh Ngo, Graham Squires, and Don J Webber
Informa UK Limited
Sabri Boubaker, Tu D. Q. Le, Riadh Manita, and Thanh Ngo
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sabri Boubaker, Tu D. Q. Le, Thanh Ngo, and Riadh Manita
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Tu D. Q. Le, Thanh Ngo, and Dat T. Nguyen
MDPI AG
Digital credit has gained much attention from academic researchers, practitioners, and policymakers worldwide. This study empirically evaluates the determinants of digital credit using cross-country data from 2013 to 2019. The conventional ordinary least square regression with fixed effects estimator is used to investigate the factors affecting the growth of digital credit. Our study highlights that the regulatory frameworks of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing, the economy’s innovative capacity, and financial development are significant factors affecting the development of digital credit, especially fintech credit. However, the findings indicate that only the innovation capacity is more critical to the expansion of bigtech credit. Nonetheless, our results provide some important implications for market participants and the authorities in promoting digital credit. Accordingly, this study contributes to the literature on the growth of digital credit when considering the critical roles of money laundering and terrorist financing frameworks and innovation capacity.
Thanh Ngo, Tu Le, Subhan Ullah, and Hai Hong Trinh
Wiley
AbstractClimate change impacts, risks and sustainability disclosures have attracted increasing attention from scholars in various streams of the economics and finance literature towards achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Within the stream of climate finance, the global initiatives for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environment, social and governance (ESG) practices have had important roles in leveraging firms to become more actively involved in environment‐related disclosure, in which climate risk reporting is central to evaluating whether and to what extent a firm and its operations are friendly to the environment. Along with the growth of the UN Principles for Responsible Investing in 2005, one of the most recent global initiatives that has been formed is the Taskforce on Climate‐Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which has considered the climate‐related financial disclosure recommendations of G20 finance ministers. Given that TCFD recommendations have recently been released for a broad domain of players (such as banks, investors, insurers and governments) in various countries (e.g., New Zealand, the United States and Japan), we surveyed the most recent studies on the TCFD by using a conceptual framework for climate‐related disclosures focusing on studies published worldwide. On the basis of a thorough review, we highlight the essential functions of financial markets and also provide the critical implications for different market players ranging from providers to supporters of the TCFD. Our study offers a timely conceptual review of the TCFD which is critical for stimulating sustainable investments, climate finance and enhanced corporate reporting.
Sabri Boubaker, Tu D.Q. Le, and Thanh Ngo
Wiley
AbstractThe evolution of the COVID‐19 pandemic is highly unpredictable; however, its impacts are limited to neither a single sector nor a single country. This study evaluates the performance and efficiency of 49 Islamic banks across 10 countries during 2019–2020 to assess how those banks can preserve their performance and remain resilient in the aftermath of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using the conventional inverse data envelopment analysis (InvDEA) approach, we show that because of reductions in their outputs, 31 out of the 49 banks studied would need to reduce their inputs so that their efficiency can remain unchanged. However, we show that only 10 banks need to make such adjustments to maintain their efficiency levels using our proposed InvDEA efficiency model. The adjustment for those 10 banks would help in reducing more inputs, suggesting more cost savings, and improving the overall efficiency of the examined banks, compared with the other 31 banks.
Tu DQ Le, Son H Tran, Dat T Nguyen, and Thanh Ngo
Universidad de Oviedo
This study empirically examines factors affecting the different stages of CBDC adoption using a sample of 55 countries engaged in CBDC projects from 2014 to 2021. The findings indicate that anti-money laundering and terrorist financing and the financial market development, inflation and technological factors are critical determinants of CBDC adoption at different stages.
Tuan Nguyen‐Anh, Shawn Leu, Anh Nguyen‐Thi‐Phuong, Thanh Ngo‐Dang, and Nguyen To‐The
Wiley
AbstractThe extraordinary COVID‐19 outbreak has heightened the existential dangers to the informal sector. This study explores the informal sector's tactics in Vietnam for mitigating the pandemic's effects and better adapting to the new normal. Using a sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) and multivariate model for ordered choices (MVOC) to conduct surveys on 513 subjects from the informal labor, our findings indicate that financial management is the most prevalent technique for mitigating the effects of COVID‐19. Notably, the perception of the COVID‐19 pandemic's impact on income and health is crucial to the adoption of mitigation efforts. The Vietnamese government, State Bank, and financial institutions should provide more help to the informal sector, particularly those operating in remote locations so that they can increase their resilience through mitigating measures. In parallel, the informal sector should participate in more deliberate forward mitigation planning in the anticipation of inevitable future shocks.
Xuan Thi Thanh Mai, Ha Thi Nhu Nguyen, Thanh Ngo, Tu D. Q. Le, and Lien Phuong Nguyen
MDPI AG
This paper examines the multi-dimensional efficiency of the Islamic banking sector and its determinants, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To do that, we use a novel approach of two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) double frontiers to evaluate the overall efficiency of 79 Islamic banks across 16 countries (2005–2020). In the first-stage analysis, we found that the Islamic banking sector experienced an increasing trend in its efficiency and performance, even during the recent pandemic, although it varied across banks and countries. Our empirical results of the second-stage analysis further showed that economic development can help countries both withstand the recent pandemic and improve the efficiency and performance of their (Islamic) banking system. This, in turn, could help speed up the recovery process of the global economy. Since there is evidence that the Islamic banking sector is resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that this sector will be a driving force of such recovery.
Isaac Levi Henderson, Mark Avis, Wai Hong Kan Tsui, Thanh Ngo, and Andrew Gilbey
MDPI AG
The authors identify a new type of brand concept, which they term as a compound brand. Compound brands have their brand associations multi-created such that the focal brand entity, their tenants, and ancillary entities all act as sources of primary brand associations. To test the possibility of compound brands, two potential compound brands are studied, airports and shopping malls. This was completed by undertaking 480 semi-structured interviews (240 for each entity) to identify the underlying brand association structure and which associations are important for consumer brand choice. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Participant responses support that compound brand association structures are created by the focal branded entity (e.g., an airport), its tenants (e.g., shops and restaurants), as well as ancillary entities (e.g., location and customers). The contributions of tenants and ancillary entities towards the brand association structures of airports and shopping malls were also statistically significant with large effect sizes. A continuum exists as to how much of the compound brand’s association structure is created by its tenants, with statistically significant differences between airports and shopping malls in terms of how much tenants contribute to overall brand association structures for the compound brand.
Lan-Huong Nguyen, Tu D.Q. Le, and Thanh Ngo
Emerald
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the efficiency and performance of the Islamic banking industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a two-stage data envelopment analysis to first estimate the efficiency of 78 Islamic banks (IBs) across 15 countries for the 2005–2020 period (a total of 782 bank-year observations) and then to examine their determinants, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings The authors found that the Islamic banking industry performed at a moderate level during the 2005–2020 period, providing evidence that IBs are resilient to the financial shocks created by COVID-19. The authors also found that bank-level characteristics (such as bank size) and country-level characteristics (such as inflation) can contribute to the bank’s operational efficiency. Research limitations/implications The results of this study suggested that banking management and government macroeconomic policy, especially in terms of precautions and continuous support, are important for IBs to improve their performance. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the efficiency and performance of IBs amid COVID-19.
Thanh Ngo, Tu DQ Le, Dat T Nguyen, and Tin H Ho
Bank Indonesia, Central Banking Research Department - Digital Commons