Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/268504 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1236
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
Vietnam is widely regarded as a success story for its impressive economic growth and poverty reduction in the last few decades. Yet, recent evidence indicates that the country's economic growth has not been uniform. Compiling and analyzing new extensive province-level data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) for every alternate year between 2002 and 2020 and other data sources, we find within-province inequality to be much larger than between-province inequality. Furthermore, this inequality gap is rising over time. Despite the country's fast poverty reduction, the poor were increasingly segregated in certain provinces. We find beneficial impact of economic growth on poverty reduction, but this can depend on inequality levels. We also find greater inequality to have negative impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. Our results suggest that policy makers in Vietnam should focus on reducing spatial disparities and income inequality in order to attain sustainable economic development.
Subjects: 
poverty
inequality
pro-poor growth
convergence
household surveys
Vietnam
JEL: 
C15
D31
I31
O10
O57
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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