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This study analyzes the impacts of parental absence due to migration, death, or divorce on children's school enrollment in Vietnam. We find children from two-parent families have a better chance of enrolling at all levels of education than those from single-parent families. Within single-family types, the negative effect on children of parental divorce is higher than that of parental death, while the effect of parental migration is the lowest. We find that children living with a single mother tend to have higher school enrollment than those living with a single father, indicating the critical role of mothers in children's education. JEL Classification: I1, I2, O1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note examines the long-term effect of female teachers' longer maternity leave on children's education and disability in Vietnam. Having a child a few months before or just after the summer vacation can increase paid leave for female teachers. Using variation in months of childbirth and applying difference-in-differences with family fixed-effect estimators, I find that female teachers in Vietnam tend to avoid giving birth during summer vacation. In the long run, longer maternity leave is positively associated with their children's education and negatively associated with the probability of child disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small area estimation (SAE), which combines a population census and a sample survey, is widely used to estimate poverty and welfare indicators in small areas. A common situation in practice is that a population census is conducted using both short‐ and long‐form questionnaires. The short form is used to collect basic demographic information for the whole population, while the long form is used to collect additional information, such as employment, from a random sample. This study shows that combining both short‐ and long‐form data can improve estimation efficiency. This method is applied to poverty maps for the 2014–2019 period in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine whether a positive income shock, measured by lottery wins, affects labor supply and the employment of individuals in Vietnam using Vietnam Living Standard Surveys 1993 and 1998. We do not find significant effects of lottery wins on the probability of working or on working hours. However, we find that lottery wins tend to be invested in productive assets and nonfarm household businesses. As a result, individuals from lottery-winning households tend to quit their wage-earning jobs and move to nonfarm self-employment. A 1% increase in lottery winnings results in a 0.22% increase in nonfarm income and a 0.056% increase in per capita income (excluding lottery winnings). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the spillover effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic firms in Vietnam. We use distance between each district center and the 17th parallel north latitude as an instrumental variable for FDI firm density at the district level. The rationale for this instrument is that districts which are closer to the 17th parallel north latitude, are more likely to suffer from unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the Indochina wars and therefore attract fewer FDI firms. We find that 1% increase in FDI firm density leads to 0.2% increase in revenue and profit per employee of domestic firms. The main mechanism for this positive effect does not take place through technology spillovers but through backward linkages where domestic firms in districts with a higher FDI firm density have more FDI customers. Our study also shows the long‐term effect of war on the efficacy of domestic firms. In particular, 1% increase in the proportion of UXO‐contaminated areas reduces revenue and profit per employee of domestic firms by 0.28% and 0.29%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Poor people have remarkably lower health expenditures than rich people in Vietnam. According to the 2016 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS), per capita health expenditure of the top quintile households is around 6 times higher than that of the bottom quintile households. Aims and Methods We analyze economic inequalities in health expenditure using the concentration index approach and data from the VHLSS 2010–2016. Next, we use the instrumental-variable regression analysis to examine the crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure on health expenditure. Finally, we use decomposition analysis to explore whether economic inequality in tobacco expenditure is associated with an economic inequality in health expenditure. Results We find a crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure on health expenditure of households. The share of health expenditure of households with tobacco spending is 0.78% lower than that of households without tobacco spending. It is estimated that a one-VND increase in tobacco expenditure results in a 0.18 Vietnamese Dong (VND) (95% CI: −0.30 to −0.06) decrease in health expenditure. There is a negative association between economic inequality in tobacco expenditure and economic inequality in health expenditure. This means that if the poor consume less tobacco, their expenditure on health can be increased, resulting in a decrease in inequality in health expenditure. Conclusions Findings from this study suggest that reducing tobacco expenditure could improve health care of the poor and reduce inequality in health care in Vietnam. Our study recommends that the government continuously increase the tobacco tax in order to effectively reduce tobacco consumption. Implications Empirical studies show mixed results on the effect of tobacco expenditure on health expenditure. We find a crowding-out effect of tobacco expenditure on health expenditure of poor households in Vietnam. It implies that if the poor reduce their expenditure on tobacco, economic inequality in health expenditure can be reduced. Our findings suggest that reducing tobacco consumption in poor households can increase their health expenditure, therefore, decreasing inequality in health expenditure. Different policies to reduce tobacco consumption such as tobacco taxation, smoke-free areas, and tobacco advertisement bans should be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the causal effect of positive income shocks on education in Vietnam using the 1993 and 1998 Vietnam Living Standard Surveys. We measure income shocks by families' lottery winnings, controlling for lottery purchases. In general, lottery winnings have no significant effect on school enrolment. However, we find a positive and significant effect from lottery winnings on expenditure for children's education. A 1% increase in lottery winnings increases expenditure on children's education by 0.12%. Interestingly, we find a stronger effect from lottery winnings on school enrolment and expenditure for education for girls than for boys, helping to decrease gender inequality in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study uses a small area estimation method to estimate the average and inequality of per capita kWh consumption for small areas in Vietnam. It shows evidence of a large spatial heterogeneity in the electric power consumption between districts and provinces in Vietnam. Households in the mountains and highlands consumed remarkably less electricity than those in the delta and coastal areas. Notably, we find a U-shaped relationship between the inequality of electricity consumption and economic levels in Vietnam. In poor districts and provinces, there is very high inequality in electricity consumption. Inequality is lower in middle-income districts and provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the impact of temperature extremes on mortality in Vietnam, using daily data on temperatures and monthly data on mortality during the 2000–2018 period. We find that both cold and heat waves cause higher mortality, particularly among older people and those living in the hot regions in Southern Vietnam. This effect on mortality tends to be smaller in provinces with higher rates of air‐conditioning and emigration, and provinces with higher public spending on health. Finally, we estimate economic cost of cold and heat waves using a framework of willingness to pay to avoid deaths, then project the cost to the year 2100 under different Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine student gender stereotypes about lecturers at a Vietnamese university by asking students to choose between male and female lecturers for different courses. The gender stereotype 'math-male', 'language-female' is the consistent finding concerning gender stereotypes. More than 70% of students prefer a male lecturer for a mathematics course, while about 30% of students prefer a male lecturer for an English course. We find that students prefer a male lecturer for mathematics partly because they believe that male lecturers are more knowledgeable in mathematics than their female colleagues. On the other hand, students prefer female lecturers for English, not because they believe women have greater knowledge than men but because they are convinced that women have better language teaching skills. In gender stereotypes about lecturers, we do not find significant differences between male and female students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a deep literature studying the impact of inequality on policy outcomes, there has been limited effort to bring these insights into the debates about comparative support for government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We fill this gap by analyzing rich survey data at the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 from six countries spanning different income levels and geographical locations—China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find that poorer individuals are less supportive of government responses. Furthermore, poorer individuals residing in more economically unequal countries offer even less government support. We also find that both economic and non-economic factors could affect the poor's decisions to support stringent government policies. These findings suggest that greater transfers to the poor may offer an option to help increase support for strict policies and may reduce the potential deepening of social inequalities caused by the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspidistra peltata, a new species morphologically allied to A. tonkinensis (= A. fungilliformis subsp. formosa; A. formosa) discovered in northern Vietnam, is described and illustrated. From the closely related A. tonkinensis, the new species differs in having an erect stem 4–14 cm tall, much smaller leaves, smaller flowers, filamentose stamens, a pure white style and an entire flat stigma with remarkably inflated margin. The new species is obviously a local endemic of the southern part of the South‐Chinese floristic province but it may potentially also found in southern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine how governance and public administration quality can affect per capita income, income inequality, and poverty using provincial-level data in Vietnam. Governance and public administration quality are measured by the Vietnam Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) surveys, which collect data on citizens' experiences with and perception of provincial performance in governance and public. Using province fixed-effect regressions, we find a positive and nonlinear association between governance and public administration and per capita income. Better performance of governance and public administration also appears to improve income distribution and reduces poverty. The association between governance quality and poverty severity is larger than the association between governance quality and poverty headcount. This finding implies that, within a province, better governance and public administration are most beneficial for the poorest of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we aim to estimate the causal effect of income shocks on migration in rural Vietnam. We use rainfall extremes as an exogenous source for income shocks. We find that high rainfall extremes increase income growth of households, while low rainfall extremes reduce their income growth. Using these rainfall extremes as the instrumental variables for income shocks, we find that negative income shocks encourage the migration. Experiencing a decrease in per capita income increases the probability of migration of rural people by 0.06. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study examines intra-generational and intergenerational mobility of employment and income in Vietnam during the 2004–2014 period. It finds there was high mobility across occupations but less mobility across wage-job employment and economic sectors. Upward labour mobility increased over time because of the increase in skilled occupations. The intergenerational elasticity of earnings is estimated at around 0.36. Education plays an important role in increasing intra-generational as well as intergenerational mobility. The earning intergenerational elasticity for children with less than primary education is rather high, at 0.51, while this intergenerational elasticity for those with a college or university degree is much lower at 0.17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The child quality-quantity debate pays extensive attention to the effect of sibship size on education, but less is known about other outcomes of children such as health and labor. In this study, we estimate the effect of sibship size on various outcomes of children including disability, education and the labor supply of children in Vietnam. We do not find significant effects of sibship size on disability and working status of children. However, we find that having an additional sibling increases the risk of dropping out of school. More specifically, having an additional sibling reduces the probability of schooling of the first-born children by 1.6 percentage points in families with at least a child. This effect is increasing to around 3.0 percentage points in families with at least three children. The effect of sibship size on the number of completed grades is also higher and more significant in large families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of exposure to United States air force bombing during 1965–75 on the disability status of individuals in Vietnam in 2009. Using a combination of national census and US military data and an instrumental variable strategy which exploits the distance to the former North–South border as a quasi-experiment, the article finds a positive and significant impact of bombing exposure on district level disability rates 40 years after the war. The overall effect of bombing on the long-term disability rate among the Vietnamese population is highest among heavily bombed districts. Districts in the top bombing quintile experience a 25% relative increase in the rate of disability attributable to bombing compared with districts in the lowest bombing quintile. Effects are highest on the prevalence of severe disability and among cohorts before the war's end. A smaller, yet significant, effect is found among cohorts born after the war. The article finds further evidence of indirect channels through which bombing may have impacted on long-term disability including adverse effects on nutritional environment and human capital attainment. These findings add to the evidence from Vietnam and indicate that wars inflict costs on the health of human populations that last longer than those relating to economic growth and welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the effect of interview observation on data quality of a large-scale individual survey in Vietnam. External spot-check teams were sent to randomly selected enumeration areas to attend and observe survey training courses and field interviews of interviewers. We find that interviewers have a lower number of item non-responses in collected data when being observed by the spot-check teams. The effect of a spot-check of field interviews appears to be higher than the effect of a spot-check of training courses. However, we do not find a significant effect of a spot-check threat: informing interviewers of a possible spot-check without actually visiting does not reduce item non-responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study finds a differential impact of different types of natural disasters on education and cognitive ability of children aged 12 to 15 years in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam using a Young Lives data set and child fixed‐effects regression. Floods tend to cause more harmful effects on children's education than droughts, frosts, and hailstorms. Exposure to floods reduces the number of completed grades of children in Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam. For the case of Vietnam, exposure to floods also decreases school enrollment, and cognitive ability scores of children. Although floods do not have a significant effect on children in India, droughts, frosts, and hailstorms have a significantly negative effect on cognitive ability test scores of children. In Peru, the effect of disasters on children's education is small and not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the long-term effects of mistimed pregnancy on one’s future educational attainment and employment. We use the time gap between a child’s birth year and their mothers’ marriage year as a proxy indicator of mistimed pregnancy. We find that a large proportion of children were born from 1 to 3 years after their mothers’ marriage, and these children have remarkably higher educational attainment and are more likely to be engaged in a high-skilled profession than children born just before their mothers’ marriage. This negative effect is consistently found in 10 countries studied in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By combining data from the 2011 Vietnam National Aging Survey and the 2011 Rural, Agricultural and Fishery Census, this study examined whether expenditure inequality has any effect on the quality of life (life satisfaction or happiness) among the elderly in rural Vietnam. It was confirmed from our regression analysis that individuals who live in the communes with high inequality tend to self-report as being less happy, even after controlling for various individual and household attributes. The findings are robust to the choice of inequality measures and the specification of econometric models. We also find that older rural people who are farmers or poor are more sensitive to inequality. Given that these people tend to be less happy than others, the result shows the risk that inequality further lowers their subjective well-being. This finding, in part, supports the view that rural Vietnam is not a mobile society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examines the effect of international migration in Egypt using fixed‐effect regressions and panel data from Egypt Labour Market Panel Surveys in 2006 and 2012. We find that men and people with higher education are more likely to migrate than women and people with lower education. Middle‐aged people are also more likely to migrate than young or old people. International migration does not seem to affect the overall employment of remaining members of migrant‐sending households. However, it tends to increase the self‐employed work of members of migrant‐sending households. Finally, international migration also helps migrant‐sending households increase their wealth index. Remittances are used to improve living conditions (housing) and purchase more assets and durables. This finding supports the theory as well as the policy to increase migration as a way to stabilize consumption and reduce poverty in low income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We measure the impact of road and irrigation projects on the livelihoods of households in the poorest and most remote areas of Vietnam using difference-in-difference estimators. We find that both rural road and irrigation projects help local households improve the access to safe water and welfare measured by a wealth index. The impact of irrigation projects is found to be larger than the impact of road projects. We also find heterogeneous impacts of road and irrigation projects. Households with higher levels of education tend to benefit more from road projects, while households with lower levels of education are likely to benefit more from irrigation projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the process of reducing poverty in ethnic minority households. Using two recent Vietnam household surveys, we find that ethnic minority households are more likely to be persistently poor and less likely to be persistently non-poor than ethnic majority households. The within-group component generated by the variation in income within each ethnicity group explains more than 90% of the change in total inequality. Income redistribution plays an important role in decreasing the poverty gap and decreasing poverty severity. Different ethnic groups have different poverty patterns, which should be noted when designing policies to alleviate poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study measures the effect of minimum wage increases on firm outcomes using fixed effects regression and panel data from Vietnam Enterprise Censuses during 2008–2010. It finds that minimum wages reduce firms’ labor size, albeit at a small magnitude. A one-percent increase in real minimum wages leads to a 0.1% reduction in the number of workers of firms. Firms are more likely to reduce male workers and those without social insurance. As a result, the proportion of female workers and workers with social insurance in firms increases due to minimum wages. Interestingly, under pressure of minimum wages, firms tend to increase assets, especially fixed assets, for labor substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine the linkages between firm agglomeration and the welfare of households in Vietnam. We measured firm agglomeration by per capita firm output at the district level and household welfare by per capita income, expenditure, and poverty. We find that firm agglomeration helps households move from the informal sector to the formal sector. As a result, there is a positive effect of firm agglomeration on per capita income, per capita expenditure, and poverty reduction, albeit of a small and time-decreasing magnitude. The effect of firm agglomeration on per capita expenditure tends to be higher for households with men, younger, and more educated heads than households with women, older, and less educated heads. Households in rural areas and those that do not have crop land are more likely to benefit from firm agglomeration than those living in urban areas and having crop land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most countries follow a market economy, they still maintain a number of state-owned firms. In Vietnam the process of firm privatisation has been going on since the early 1990s. However, state-owned firms and joint-venture firms with public capital still account for nearly 40% of total firm output. In this article we find that the privatisation of firms can help households improve their welfare and reduce poverty, albeit by a small magnitude. The agglomeration of firms, as a result of privatisation, increases employment and wages of individuals and thus has a positive effect on per capita income, per capita expenditure and poverty reduction. In particular, the effect on per capita expenditure tends to be higher for households with male, younger and better educated heads than those with female, older and less well educated heads. We do not find any effect from state-owned firms on household welfare and poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are numerous studies on international remittances and on smoking, there are no studies on the link between these two issues. This study provides empirical evidence for the impact of international remittances on household tobacco spending in Vietnam using panel data from Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys. It is found that receipt of international remittances reduces the probability of household spending on tobacco by around 0.098. Remittance receipt also reduces per capita tobacco expenditure for households with tobacco spending and for all households by approximately 21 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters are expected exacerbate poverty and inequality, but little evidence exists to support the impact at household level. This article examines the effect of natural disasters on household income, expenditure, poverty and inequality using the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey in 2008. The effects of a natural disaster on household income and expenditure, corrected for fixed effects and potential endogeneity bias, are estimated at 6.9% and 7.1% declines in Vietnamese household per capita income and expenditure, respectively. Natural disasters demonstrably worsen expenditure poverty and inequality in Vietnam, and thus should be considered as a factor in designing poverty alleviation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To identify poor households, the government of Vietnam applies a combination of proxy means tests and quick collection of income data. This paper examines how well the government's poverty identification reaches the really poor in Vietnam. It is found that there is a large difference between the poverty rate for provinces and districts reported by the government and the rates estimated using expenditure and income data from independent household surveys. There is also a large difference between the poverty status of households identified by local authorities and the poverty status identified by income or expenditure data. More than 50 per cent of the poor households identified by local authorities are not poor in terms of income or expenditure measures. A better identification approach would be to use only proxy means tests and not income data collected using the simple questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative political economy offers a wealth of hypotheses connecting decentralization to improved public service delivery. In recent years, influential formal and experimental work has begun to question the underlying theory and empirical analyses of previous findings. At the same time, many countries have grown dissatisfied with the results of their decentralization efforts and have begun to reverse them. Vietnam is particularly intriguing because of the unique way in which it designed its recentralization, piloting a removal of elected people's councils in 99 districts across the country and stratifying the selection by region, type of province, and urban versus rural setting. We take advantage of the opportunity provided by this quasi experiment to test the core hypotheses regarding the decision to shift administrative and fiscal authority to local governments. We find that recentralization significantly improved public service delivery in areas important to central policy-makers, especially in transportation, healthcare, and communications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of a minimum wage increase on employment of workers in the formal sector who have wages below the minimum level in Vietnam. Using the difference-in-differences with propensity score matching and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys of 2004 and 2006, the article finds that the minimum wage increase in 2005 reduced the proportion of workers having a formal sector job among low-wage workers. Most workers who lost formal sector jobs became self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Vietnam aims to achieve full coverage of health insurance in 2015. An increasing type of health insurance in Vietnam is voluntary health insurance. Although there are many studies on the implementation of voluntary health insurance in Vietnam, little is known on the causal impact of voluntary health insurance. This paper measures the impact of voluntary health insurance on health care utilization and out-of-pocket payments using Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2004 and 2006. It was found out that voluntary health insurance helps the insured people increase the annual outpatient and inpatient visits by around 45% and 70%, respectively. However, the effect of voluntary health insurance on out-of-pocket expenses on health care services is not statistically significant. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article estimates the impact of work migration and non-work migration on per capita income, per capita expenditures, poverty and inequality in Vietnam using data from the two most recent Vietnam Household and Living Standard Surveys. We find that both work migration and non-work migration have a positive impact on per capita expenditures of migrant-sending households. Non-work migration significantly decreases the incidence, depth and severity of national poverty. The effect of work migration on poverty is much smaller. Still, while work migration does not lift people out of poverty, it makes their poverty less severe. In addition, both work migration and non-work migration decrease inequality, albeit only very slightly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]