Ph.D. Candidate in Economics | Uppsala University

2026–2027 Economics Job Market Candidate

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Uppsala University, Sweden. My research lies at the intersection of labor, health, and migration economics. 

I combine novel datasets, Swedish administrative records, and quasi-experimental methods to study how labor market institutions and firms shape workers' employment opportunities, working conditions, and well-being.

Primary field: Labor Economics
Secondary fields: Health Economics, Migration Economics

Affiliations: Uppsala Immigration Lab, Uppsala Center for Labor Studies 

Email: tram.pham [at] nek.uu.se

Curriculum Vitae

Job Market Paper

Public Procurement, Job Security, and Health: Evidence from the Railway Industry

[Download Paper]

Abstract

I study how public procurement reshapes the workforce and affects workers' employment and health. Using hand-collected railway contracts and Swedish administrative data, I exploit staggered procurement across regions. I find that procurement creates opportunities for new workers while imposing adjustment costs on incumbents. New entrants are more likely to be foreign-born, previously unemployed, or reliant on social assistance. Procurement increases employer separation among incumbents by approximately 25 percentage points. Among treated incumbents, those who leave their original employer experience average annual earnings declines of SEK 12,100, compared with increases of SEK 12,000 among stayers. Disruptions are concentrated when a new operator takes over. Procurement also increases sickness absence, health-related benefit receipt, and mental-health medication use among incumbents. An illustrative cost-benefit analysis suggests that worker-related costs offset approximately two percentage points of potential procurement savings.

Publications

Age at Migration and Health Shock Resilience

With Olof Åslund, Erik Grönqvist, and Oskar Nordström Skans

Accepted, Health Economics

Abstract

Using comprehensive data on the Swedish population, we document that massive age-specific immigrant-native hospitalization gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic were strongly related to host-country exposure during childhood. Exploiting variation between siblings, we test and systematically rule out several potential explanations for the role of host-country exposure: it is not attributable to (i) shared family characteristics (e.g., genetics), (ii) birthplace-specific factors, (iii) known pre-existing medical risk factors, (iv) social or economic segregation, or (v) differences in vaccination behavior.

[Download Paper]

Work in Progress

Immigrant Integration and Workplace Health

With Olof Åslund, Theo Bodin, and Wooseong Kim

We study workplace health as an overlooked dimension of immigrant integration. Combining Swedish linked employer–employee data with novel job exposure matrices, we construct establishment-level health measures to examine whether immigrants are disproportionately employed in less healthy workplaces and whether their access to healthier working environments improves with time spent in Sweden.

Awards

Best Student Paper Award (2023)
Nordic Health Economists' Study Group
Age at Migration and Health Shock Resilience