About Me

I’m Tuan Nguyen, a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Middle Tennessee State University and a Graduate Research Fellow with the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). My research focuses on applied microeconomics, labor economics, and institutional economics, with particular interest in how economic freedom and public policy influence labor market outcomes such as unemployment duration.

My dissertation, Economic Freedom and Unemployment Duration: Evidence from U.S. Microdata, uses survival analysis with data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America Index. Beyond this work, I explore topics in informal finance, trade policy, and state-level fiscal institutions.

At MTSU, I teach Principles of Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, where I emphasize active learning, inclusivity, and real-world applications of economic ideas. Before pursuing my Ph.D., I spent over a decade in business management and entrepreneurship, where those experiences continue to shape my perspective on markets, institutions, and economic opportunity.