Labour Market Returns to Higher Education in Vietnam

This paper employs the Ordinary Least Squares, Instrumental Variables and Treatment Effect models to a new dataset from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey (VHLSS) to estimate return to the four-year university education in 2008. Our estimates reveal that the return to university education is about 17% (annualized) and robust to the various estimators. The return to higher education has significantly increased since the economic reform in late 1980s.economic transition; returns to higher education; IV model; Vietnam

Do returns to schools go up during transition? The not so contrary case of Vietnam

A key stylized fact about transition economies is that the returns to schooling rise as economic reform progresses. Existing research suggests that Vietnam is an exception to this pattern, with a decrease in males’ return from 1992 to 1998, and little increase in the return to females’ education (Liu, 2006). This exception may be because of the gradual economic reform applied in Vietnam, whilst in Eastern European countries the “Big Bang” transformation was conducted. Therefore to see whether Vietnam is still a counter example, we re-examine the trend in the rate of return to schooling in Vietnam over the 1998-2004 period, where the reforms have had a longer time to have an effect

What determines credit participation and credit constraints of the poor in peri-urban areas, Vietnam?

This paper uses a novel dataset collected by the first author from peri-urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2008 to examine how the poor use their loans, and factors affecting their credit participation and credit constraints. The paper finds the presence of many commercial banks in the areas does not help the poor, but the poor rely heavily on informal credit. Loans in the peri-urban areas are mainly used for non-productive purposes, which stresses the importance of consumption smoothing motives. Further, households in more rural wards have a higher probability of borrowing than more urban households, thanks to better community relationships and higher interpersonal trust. Competition by borrowing neighbours adversely affects the opportunity for borrowing in urban wards where the poor households’ borrowings rely much more on subsidized credit funds. A closer look at specified microcredit sources reveals that household behaviours differ in each market segment. Furthermore, the poor are highly credit-constrained. Wealthier households, in terms of asset holdings and phone possession, among the poor group appear less credit-constrained. However, except in the most rural part of the study area, the likelihood of credit constraints increases with distance to the nearest banks, which suggests that supply-side intervention could help in overcoming credit constraints. Overall, the poor in urban wards are more credit-constrained because of exclusion by commercial banks and weak interpersonal trust

Return to schooling in Vietnam during economic transition: Does return to schooling in Vietnam reach its peak?

A common phenomenon about transition economies is that the return to schooling improves as economic reform progresses. Existing research suggests that Vietnam is not an exception to the pattern. However, the rate of return in period from 1992 to 1998 is still relatively low, below 5 percent, relative to that of the world and other transitional economies. And it is hard to see a clear trend in the current literature due to different methods applied and sets of variables controlled in the earnings equations (see Appendix B). The low returns may result from the gradual economic reforms applied in Vietnam, whilst in Eastern European countries the “Big Bang” transformation was conducted. Therefore, to test whether the return to schooling in Vietnam is rising and reaches other transitional economies’ rate of returns, we re-examine the trend in the rate of return to schooling in Vietnam over the 1998-2008 period, when the reforms have had a longer time to have an effect. We apply the OLS and Heckman selection estimator (Maximum Likelihood approach) and find that the return has increased quickly during the later economic reform but its pace has slowed down when the return reached the global average rate of returns at somewhere between 9 and 10 percent.economic transition, returns to schooling, Vietnam

Evolution of competition in Vietnam industries over the recent economic transition

Understanding the degree and evolution of competition across industries is an important step towards understanding the impact of economic reform and competition on economic growth in Vietnam during the economic transition. In this paper, we investigate evolution of competition in Vietnam during the economic transition using the Price-Cost Margin (PCM) or Mark-up that has been widely applied in the economic literature and the Profit Elasticity (PE) recently developed by Boone (2000). This paper provides the first empirical study of intensity and evolution of competition across selected industries in Vietnam in the last decade using firm-level data from the Vietnam Enterprise Census (VEC) conducted annually since 2000 by the Vietnam General Statistical Office (GSO).Competition, industry, economic transition, Vietnam

What determines credit participation and credit constraints of the poor in peri-urban areas, Vietnam?

This paper uses a novel dataset collected by the first author from peri-urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2008 to examine how the poor use their loans, and factors affecting their credit participation and credit constraints. The paper finds the presence of many commercial banks in the areas does not help the poor, but the poor rely heavily on informal credit. Loans in the peri-urban areas are mainly used for non-productive purposes, which stresses the importance of consumption smoothing motives. Further, households in more rural wards have a higher probability of borrowing than more urban households, thanks to better community relationships and higher interpersonal trust. Competition by borrowing neighbours adversely affects the opportunity for borrowing in urban wards where the poor households’ borrowings rely much more on subsidized credit funds. A closer look at specified microcredit sources reveals that household behaviours differ in each market segment. Furthermore, the poor are highly credit-constrained. Wealthier households, in terms of asset holdings and phone possession, among the poor group appear less credit-constrained. However, except in the most rural part of the study area, the likelihood of credit constraints increases with distance to the nearest banks, which suggests that supply-side intervention could help in overcoming credit constraints. Overall, the poor in urban wards are more credit-constrained because of exclusion by commercial banks and weak interpersonal trust.Credit participation; credit constraints; the poor; peri-urban; Vietnam

Impacts of household credit on education and healthcare spending by the poor in peri-urban areas in Vietnam

There is debate about whether microfinance has positive impacts on education and health for borrowing households in developing countries. To provide evidence for this debate we use a new survey designed to meet the conditions for propensity score matching (PSM) and examine the impact of household credit on education and healthcare spending by the poor in peri-urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In addition to matching statistically identical non-borrowers with borrowers, our estimates also control for household pre-treatment income and assets, which may be associated with unobservable factors affecting both credit participation and the outcomes of interest. The PSM estimates of binary treatment effect show significant and positive impacts of borrowing on education and healthcare spending. However, multiple ordered treatment effect estimates reveal that only formal credit has significant and positive impacts on education and healthcare spending, while informal credit has insignificant impacts on the spending

Return to schooling in Vietnam during economic transition: Does the return reach its peak?

A common phenomenon about transition economies is that the return to schooling improves as economic reform progresses. Existing research suggests that Vietnam is not an exception to the pattern. However, the rate of return for the period 1992-1998 is still relatively low, below 5%, relative to that of the world and other transitional economies. In addition, it is hard to see a clear trend in the current literature due to different methods applied and sets of variables controlled in the earnings equations (see Appendix B). The low returns may result from the gradual economic reforms applied in Vietnam, whilst in Eastern European countries the “Big Bang” transformation was conducted. Therefore, to test whether the return to schooling in Vietnam is rising and reaches other transitional economies’ rate of returns, we re-examine the trend in the rate of return to schooling in Vietnam over the 1998-2008 period, when the reforms have had a longer time to have an effect. We apply the OLS and Heckman selection estimator (Maximum Likelihood approach) and find that the return has increased quickly during the later economic reform but its pace has slowed down when the return reached the global average rate of returns around 10%.economic transition, returns to schooling, Vietnam

A quasi-3D hyperbolic shear deformation theory for functionally graded plates

A quasi-3D hyperbolic shear deformation theory for functionally graded plates is developed. The theory accounts for both shear deformation and thickness-stretching effects by a hyperbolic variation of all displacements across the thickness, and satisfies the stress-free boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate without requiring any shear correction factor. The benefit of the present theory is that it contains a smaller number of unknowns and governing equations than the existing quasi-3D theories, but its solutions compare well with 3D and quasi-3D solutions. Equations of motion are derived from the Hamilton principle. Analytical solutions for bending and free vibration problems are obtained for simply supported plates. Numerical examples are presented to verify the accuracy of the present theory