A microeconometric analysis of housing and life satisfaction among the Vietnamese elderly

This study examines the relationship between housing and subjective well-being among the Vietnamese elderly, using data from the 2011 Vietnam Ageing Survey. Our regression analysis reveals that permanent housing and better amenities are major factors contributing to housing satisfaction and life satisfaction. Notably, we find that housing satisfaction has a strongly positive impact on life satisfaction and the impact is stronger after controlling for endogeneity problems. Thus, the finding confirms that housing is an important life domain and as a result, housing satisfaction is a strong predictor of life-satisfaction judgments. The findings might suggest that people made a rational choice when they invested a large amount of resources in their houses with notable well-being gains. Also, another implication here is that policies and programs to assist poor families in moving out of temporary accommodation or improving housing amenities are likely to be beneficial in improving well-being for the poor elderly.

     

IMPACTS OF TRADE LIBERALIZATION ON EMPLOYMENT IN VIETNAM: A SYSTEM GENERALIZED METHOD OF MOMENTS ESTIMATION

Using a system generalized method of moments model, the present paper investigates the impacts of trade liberalization on employment in Vietnam from 1999 to 2004. The results show that the increase in industrial output increased labor demand, whereas the increasing wage rate led to a decline in the employment level. The impact of export expansion on derived labor demand was positive and statistically significant, indicating that the higher level of exports than previously presented employment opportunities for the country's large labor surplus. As far as imports are concerned, empirical observations indicate that imports did not necessarily negatively impact Vietnam's employment level.     

Bank reforms and efficiency in Vietnamese banks: evidence based on SFA and DEA

This study examines the cost efficiency of Vietnamese banks from 2000 to 2014 in the first stage, and the selection and dynamic effects of two governance reforms, foreign partial acquisition and listing on the stock exchange, on the efficiency in the second stage. Empirical results from the two-stage Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) are highly consistent with those from the two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) . Specifically, the first-stage efficiency estimation indicates that the cost efficiency shows a slightly upward trend over the period 2000–2014, with the cost efficiency score being 0.93 and state-owned banks outperforming joint-stock banks (JSBs). The mixed process seemingly unrelated regression estimator which controls the potential endogeneity of public listing and foreign acquisition in the second stage shows that selection effects occur in the Vietnamese banking system: banks selected by the strategic foreign investors for partial acquisition and banks selected for public listing are more cost-efficient than those not selected. The short-term and long-term dynamic effects of foreign partial acquisition are documented: the cost efficiency of the Vietnamese banks post-partial acquisition is lower than prior-partial acquisition, and it experiences a decreasing trend since partial acquisition. However, the short-term and long-term dynamic effects of public listing are not evidenced: the cost efficiency of the banks after public listing is not statistically different from that before public listing, and it also reveals an unclear trend since public listing.     

Diversification strategies and firm performance in Vietnam

This paper is based upon the assumption that a firm's profitability is determined by its degree of diversification which is, in turn, strongly related to the antecedent decision to carry out diversification activities. This calls for an empirical approach that permits the joint analysis of the three interrelated and consecutive stages of the overall diversification process: diversification decision, degree of diversification and outcome of diversification. We apply parametric and semi‐parametric approaches to control for sample selection and the endogeneity of the diversification decision in both static and dynamic models. For the analysis, we use the census dataset on the whole firm population in Vietnam, as a representative of transition countries. After controlling for industry fixed‐effects, the empirical evidence from the firm‐level data shows that diversification has a curvilinear effect on profitability: it improves firms’ profit up to a point, after which a further increase in diversification is associated with declining performance. This implies that firms should consider optimal levels of product diversification when they expand their product offerings beyond their core business. Other noteworthy findings include the following: (i) the factors that stimulate firms to diversify do not necessarily encourage them to extend their diversification strategy; (ii) firms that are endowed with highly technological resources and innovation investment are likely to successfully exploit diversification as an engine of growth; and (iii) while industry performance does not have a strong influence on the profitability of firms, it impacts their diversification decision as well as the degree of diversification.     

Valuing cultural heritage in developing countries: comparing and pooling contingent valuation and choice modelling estimates

A substantial part of the United Nation’s World Heritage Sites (WHSs) can be found in developing countries, but many of them are in a bad state. Thus, there is a need to document the social benefits of these global goods in order to justify the costs of restoration and preservation programmes (RPPs). This study adds to the scarce literature on economic benefits of WHSs in developing countries, and reduces the need to perform very uncertain benefit transfers from European or US valuation studies. We apply Contingent Valuation (CV) and Choice Modelling (CM) to estimate the social benefits of RPPs for the My Son world cultural heritage site in Vietnam; both to foreign visitors and the local residents. We then compare the estimates from the CV and CM methods, and pool the results from the two methods. The results show that both CV and CM are suited to estimating the economic benefits of preserving cultural heritage of My Son. The two methods produce very similar results, which can be interpreted as a test of convergence validity. The pooling results give evidence to show that the CV and CM models have the same underlying preference structures. Thus, these valuation models can be successfully used in cost-benefit analyses to assess the benefits to cultural heritage of measures to reduce air pollution, soil erosion, climate change and other causes to deterioration of cultural heritage sites.

Optimal infant industry protection during transition to World Trade Organization membership – A numerical analysis for the Vietnamese motorcycle industry

This paper proposes a framework to derive the optimal dynamic path of tariffs to protect infant industries when a country initiates a process to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). The framework is based on the model of Melitz (2005) in which externalities associated with dynamic learning-by-doing provide a rationale for infant industry protection. Unlike the original model, this paper assumes that there is a time limit for protection: after a fixed number of years, tariffs are required to be constant over time at a low level. This setup reflects the nature of the actual WTO agreement. This model is solved analytically to derive quantitative implications for the optimal tariff path, unlike in Melitz (2005), where only qualitative analyses are undertaken. An interesting result emerges: conventional wisdom is that a country in this situation should reduce the tariff rate gradually over time so that it converges to its long-run rate at the terminal date of protection. By contrast, this paper finds that, in some plausible scenarios, the optimal time path of the tariff can be upward sloping. A numerical analysis applied to the Vietnamese motorcycle industry, a typical infant industry in a country joining the WTO, confirms such a pattern.     

Vietnamese Economy at the Crossroads: New Doi Moi for Sustained Growth

Thanks to doi moi, Vietnam was successful in escaping the poverty trap and emerged as a lower middle‐income country in the late 2000s. From that time, however, the Vietnamese economy entered a new phase, which has been characterized by slow growth, weak international competitiveness, and macroeconomic instability. Apart from short‐term problems associated with the management of increasing foreign capital, the major factors accounting for the difficulties of Vietnam's current economic phase can be attributed to the Vietnamese style of the gradualist strategy of transition from a planned to a market economy, which protects state‐owned enterprises, and consequently to the failure to respond to the rapid rise of China. For further industrialization and sustained growth, Vietnam should embrace a new doi moi that follows the efficient type of gradualist strategy, with a special focus on new reforms of state‐owned enterprises and a policy that promotes the country' s dynamic comparative advantage.     

亚洲高速公路，许东盟一个美好未来

由大湄公河次流域国家酝酿、亚洲发展银行投资兴建的亚洲高速公路虽然还未竣工，已经证明了其巨大的经济效益，并在很大程度上改变着这个区域。[编者按]     

Adaptive algorithms for maximizing overall stock return

Deciding which stocks to purchase and how to optimally allocate the total investment among them is a nontrivial task for every investor. In this article, we propose two adaptive techniques that would provide an optimal allocation maximizing the return over the investment period. The first approach is the adaptive power method (PM) which is a modification of the proper orthogonal decomposition method. The adaptive PM uses only the currently available information to compute the optimal allocations, yet its long-term solution approaches the dominant eigen solution, even though that solution would require having a priori knowledge of all stocks’ performance. The second approach is derived from the well-known Least Mean Square (LMS) method, where the optimal allocation can be computed by adaptively steering the overall return toward a desired value. The experimental results have indicated promising gains even when the general market trend is downward.