Economic growth and balance-of-payments constraint in Vietnam

Abstract

Our paper examines the long-run relation between economic growth and current account equilibrium in Vietnam, using a multicountry balance-of-payments-constrained growth model. We find that for the whole sample (1985–2010) Vietnam grew less than the rate predicted by the model. We also find that the balance-of-payments-constrained growth rate shifted after the 1997 Asian crisis. Since the relative price effect is neutral, the volume effects dominate in setting the balance-of-payments constraint. On the one hand, owing to the high income elasticities of exports, growth in advanced countries has a strong multiplier effect on the Vietnamese economy. On the other hand, this effect is hindered by a strong “appetite” for imports coming from Asia. Finally, we assess the impact of the current crisis on Vietnam’s growth for the period 2011 to 2017.     

Responses to World Oil and Coal Shocks, in a Short-Run Fuel Substitution Tax Model

This article examines effects on major Australian macroeconomic and structural variables of simultaneous shocks to world oil and black coal prices. The illustrative numerical results have been produced with the short-run fuel substitution tax model, ORANI-LFT. The current version of that model reflects the Australian Governmet's pre-1988 oil regulatory framework, and the simulations reported in this study reflect the recent switch from significant dependence on crude oil levy revenue to petroleum products excise revenue. Empirical results show that combined world oil and coal price shocks lead to substantially different effects than would occur from an oil shock alone. A major implication of this, for a small open economy such as Australia, is that particular attention has to be paid to the interdependence of world energy market, both when analysing the effects of such shocks and when formulating appropriate macroeconomic and energy policy responses. It is also pointed out how the model could be modified for investigating effects under deregulated oil market regimes.     

Ownership Structure and Capital Structure: A Study of Vietnamese Listed Firms

This paper examines the relationships between ownership structure and capital structure for non‐financial listed firms in Vietnam during the period 2007–2012. Although different approaches are applied in this research, all results from those models are consistent. The study finds that while foreign ownership has a negative impact on leverage, state ownership has a positive influence. Managerial ownership has a positive relation with debt level, while the effect of large ownership on debt level is not conclusive.     

Regional differences in the production processes of financial and social outputs of microfinance institutions

This study uses panel data of microfinance institutions across the world to compare production processes across regions, assess the relevance of unobserved heterogeneity and estimate economies of scale. Comparing a financial production process to a multidimensional production process that accounts for the presence of outreach in the objective function suggests that financial and social output reflect complements in South Asia but not in other regions. Furthermore, we find substantial economies of scale for a pure financial production process. However, accounting for outreach lowers estimated economies of scale, suggesting that producing outreach creates high transaction costs and requires exploitation of local knowledge.     

How Important are Earnings Announcements as an Information Source?

In a competitive information market, a single information source can only dominate other sources individually, not collectively. We explore whether earnings announcements constitute such a dominant source using Ball and Shivakumar's (2008) [How much new information is there in earnings?, Journal of Accounting Research, 2008, 46(5), pp. 975–1016] R ² metric: the proportion of the variation in annual returns explained by the four quarterly earnings announcement returns. We find that the earnings announcement days' R ² is 11% – higher than the corresponding R ² of days with dividend announcements, management forecasts, preannouncements, and 10-K and 10-Q filings and their amendments, and comparable to that of the four days with the largest realised absolute returns in a year. Additional analysis reveals that earnings announcements convey extreme bad news as often as management forecasts and preannouncements; for any other type of news, earnings announcements are much more frequent. We conclude that earnings announcements are an important source of new information in the equity market.     

The Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Supply Chain Members in Non‐BRIC Emerging Markets

The global economic crises that began in 2008 had profound effects on the supply chains of many multinational firms across all industries including altering some fundamental supply chain characteristics. This study discusses the effects of the crises on lower‐level supply chain members in the context of the textile and garment industry in emerging markets. The fieldwork for this research and the integration of new United Nations data provide evidence for the vulnerability of those supply chain members that provide only commoditized basic services that do not depend on talent skills or resource availability. Most of these, less sophisticated supply chain members are located in non‐BRIC emerging economies, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Haiti, Honduras, and so on. We present a framework that is transferable across industries. The framework is useful for managers when evaluating the feasibility and reliability of different suppliers from emerging and developing countries in particular. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Impact of Credit Policy on Rice Production in Myanmar

Rural finance has long been an important tool for poverty reduction and rural development by donors and governments, but the impacts have been controversial. Measuring impact is challenging due to identification problems caused by selection bias and governments’ targeted interventions, while randomised trial data are scarce and limited to contexts where little to no rural finance exists. Using an author‐collected dataset, we provide insights on a large‐scale long‐lasting subsidised rice credit programme in Myanmar, one of the poorest and, until recently, most economically isolated countries in Asia. Identification relies on a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, exploiting an arbitrary element to the credit provision rule which is based on rice landholding size. Although we find little evidence that rice yield or output is increased, we do see that the programme has some positive effects on total household income, suggesting a positive spillover effect on other farm income activities.     

Strategic Human Resource Management as Ethical Stewardship

The research about strategic human resource management (SHRM) has suggested that human resource professionals (HRPs) have the opportunity to play a greater role in contributing to organizational success if they are effective in developing systems and policies aligned with the organization??s values, goals, and mission. We suggest that HRPs need to raise the standard of their performance and that the competitive demands of the modern economic environment create implicit ethical duties that HRPs owe to their organizations. We define ethical stewardship as a model of governance that honors obligations due to the many stakeholders and that maximizes long-term organizational wealth creation. We propose that if HRPs adopt an ethical stewardship framework and the qualities of transformative leaders, they will be more aware of their ethical duties to their organizations and more effective in helping their organizations to create increased wealth, achieve desired organizational outcomes, and establish work environments that are more satisfying to employees.