The policy reforms called for in the
transition from a socialist command economy to a developing
market economy bring both opportunities and risks to a
country's citizens.... Show More +
In poor economies, the initial
focus of reform efforts is naturally the rural sector, which
is where one finds the bulk of the population and almost all
the poor. Economic development will typically entail moving
many rural households out of farming into more remunerative
(urban and rural) non-farm activities. Reforms that shift
the rural economy from the relatively rigid, control-based
farming institutions found under socialist agriculture to a
more flexible, market-based model in which production
incentives are strong can thus play an important role in the
process of economic growth. However, such reforms present a
major challenge to policy makers, who are concerned that
they will generate socially unacceptable inequalities in
land and other dimensions relevant to people's living
standards. This book studies how the changes in land
institutions and land allocation required for Vietnam's
agrarian transition affected people's living
standards-notably that of the country's rural poor.
Living standards means household command over commodities,
as measured by consumption Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: 43966
Date: April 7, 2008
Author:
Walle, Dominique van de ;
Ravallion, Martin
Examining the experience of the
Canada-Vietnam remittances corridor over the past several
years, this title is a first step towards identifying the
main features and... Show More +
pointing out some of the areas and issues
that researchers and authorities should examine more
closely. In contrast to the large size and advanced level of
development of the U.S.-Mexico remittances corridor,
examined in the first case study, the Canada-Vietnam
corridor is small in absolute terms and still at a nascent
stage of shifting from informal to formal systems. For
purposes of discussion, The Canada-Vietnam Remittance
Corridor breaks down the remittance process into three
stages: the First Mile, when decisions are in the hands of
the remittance sender; the Intermediary Stage, comprising
the systems that facilitate the cross-border transfer of
funds, and; the Last Mile, where the funds reach the hands
of the remittance recipient. By analyzing the objectives,
obstacles, incentives, and changes occurring at each of
these stages in the Canada-Vietnam corridor, lessons are
drawn for other remittance sending and receiving countries
that seek to encourage formalization of the flows. Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: 32179
Date: March 1, 2005
Author:
Hernandez-Coss, Raul
The development story in Vietnam in
recent years has been one of remarkable progress (Dollar
2002). Over the 1990s, the economy doubled and the incidence
of poverty... Show More +
declined by half. Although these are indeed
notable achievements, they are but the first steps across a
difficult terrain. About 30 million people, or more than a
third of the total population, continue to live in poverty,
and 25 million, or about 60 percent of the labor force, are
either underemployed or unemployed. To create jobs for the
unemployed, underemployed, and new additions to the work
force, Vietnam will have to double the economy again by the
end of the decade, but this cannot happen unless both the
level and the quality of investment increase substantially.
According to World Bank estimates, average total investment
must reach 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by
2010, which represents a 5 percent increase over the 1990s,
while average productivity will have to be about 40 percent
higher (World Bank 2001). To achieve these objectives,
Vietnam needs to encourage the private sector to contribute
more to economic growth. This will require significant
improvements in its business environment. Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: 26976
Date: August 1, 2003
Author:
Stoyan Tenev, Amanda Carlier, Omar Chaudry,
and Quynh-Trang Nguyen
Private participation in infrastructure
has taken two distinct forms in the developing world. The
first model, applied primarily in Latin America, focuses on
privatization... Show More +
of existing infrastructure assets. The second,
applied largely in East Asia, focuses on retaining existing
assets in the public sector but seeking private sector
involvement to augment capacity through new greenfield
investments. The financial crisis that emerged in East Asia
in mid-1997 threatened to undermine much of the progress the
region had made in applying this second model to mobilize
private investment and financing for infrastructure. This
report describes the background of the 1997 financial crisis
in East Asia and its impact on private investment in the
region's infrastructure. It then analyzes lessons
learned in the aftermath of the crisis in six
countries--Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, the
Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam--and explores how
these countries can respond to the new challenges. Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: WTP501
Date: April 30, 2001
Author:
Baietti, Aldo
Circumstance and choice: the role of
initial conditions and policies in transition economies; by
Martha de Melo, Cevdet Denizer, Allan Gelb and Stoyan Tenev.
Multi-tier... Show More +
targeting of social assistance: the role of
intergovernmental transfers; by Harold Alderman. Flight
capital as a portfolio choice; by Paul Collier, Anke
Hoeffler and Catherine Pattillo. The impact of early
childhood nutritional status on cognitive development: does
the timing of malnutrition matter? By Paul Glewwe and
Elizabeth M. King. The mystery of the vanishing benefits: an
introduction to impact evaluation; by Martin Ravallion. Does
ignoring heterogeneity in impacts distort project
appraisals? An experiment for irrigation in Vietnam; by
Dominique van de Walle and Dileni Gunewardena. New tools in
comparative political economy: the database of political
institutions; by Thorsten Beck, George Clarke, Alberto
Groff, Philip Keefer and Patrick Walsh. Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: 35055
Date: January 1, 2001
Author:
Tanev, Stoyan ;
King, Elizabeth M. ;
van de Walle, Dominique ;
Groff, Alberto ;
Bourguignon, Francois [editor] ;
Alderman, Harold ;
Gunewardena, Dileni ;
Walsh, Patrick ;
Denizer, Cevdet ;
Collier, Paul ;
Hoeffler, Anke ;
Beck, Thorsten ;
Clarke, George ;
Keefer, Philip ;
de Melo, Martha ;
Gelb, Allan ;
Glewwe, Paul ;
Ravallion, Martin ;
Pattillo, Catherine
This essay considers the basic issues
facing transitional socialist economies, including price
reforms, enterprise and financial sector reforms, and
institutional changes... Show More +
relating to the role of government.
Using Viet Nam as the case in point, it identifies the key
constraints facing governments seeking to move rapidly to
the market system. Although Viet Nam is only on its third
year of reform, it has achieved a number of successes,
prominant among which are almost complete price decontrol
and a flexible exchange rate. The essay addresses a number
of specific concerns facing Viet Nam. Among these are links
between enterprise and banking form, issues of
decentralization, industrial policy, changes in ownership
and private sector development, and issues of social
justice. The objectives of this paper are to: (i) inform a
broad readership about the bold economic reform program
being undertaken without international assistance in Viet
Nam; (ii) to identify for the authorities key bottlenecks
and future issues to be addressed; (iii) to constrast where
possible this experiment vis-a-vis reform programs in other
countries; and (iv) to begin the process of generalizing
lessons from these cases so as to better understand the
transformation process itself. Show Less -
Type: Publication
Report#: WDP157
Date: March 31, 1992
Author:
Leipziger, D.M.
