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This research examines how the digital economy, energy efficiency, and demographic transition might help Viet Nam achieve more sustainable economic development. The causal association between digitalization, the demographic dividend, energy intensity, and long-term economic development has not been thoroughly investigated yet. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the asymmetric relationship between these indicators in Viet Nam, which is recognized as an emerging economy, using the relatively novel quantile-on-quantile regression and Granger causality approaches in different quantiles. The empirical findings suggest that the asymmetric interaction between digital innovation, energy intensity, demographic change, and economic growth in Viet Nam is primarily positive, even though there are slight differences across various quantiles of the selected indicators. In addition, the outcomes of Granger causality in quantile analysis uncover that, during the sample period, a bidirectional association exists between digitalization, the demographic dividend, and economic growth, while a unidirectional causality runs from energy intensity to economic growth.

In this paper, we estimated the additional health capacities to work of older Vietnamese adults by applying the Milligan–Wise and Cutler–Meara–Richards-Shubik methods with various nationally representative datasets. In following these methods, we postulated that older adults’ mortality rates, life expectancies, and health statuses were comparable to their younger counterparts. We found that there were significant differences in employment rates between various groups of older male and female adults, in which women generally had higher capacities to work than men if they both had similar mortality rates. Along with other sociodemographic and economic factors, health status is a significant factor in determining the probability of being employed for older adults. Based on these findings, we discuss needed policy options, with a focus on health-related issues, for Viet Nam to unleash the potential work capacities of older adults.

Inequality in access to education is known to be a key driver of income inequality in developing countries. Viet Nam, a transitional economy, exhibits significant segmentation in the market for skilled labor based on more remunerative employment in government and state firms. We ask whether this segmentation is also reflected in human capital investments at the household level. We find that households whose heads hold state jobs keep their children in school longer, spend more on education, and are more likely to enroll their children in tertiary institutions relative to households whose heads hold nonstate jobs. The estimates are robust to a wide range of household and individual controls. Over time, disparities in educational investments based on differential access to jobs that reward skills and/or credentials help widen existing income and earnings gaps between well-connected “princelings” and the rest of the labor market. Capital market policies that create segmentation in the market for skills also crowd out investment in private sector firms, further reducing incentives for human capital deepening.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) may benefit local firms in the host country through various kinds of spillovers, but it may also raise competition and result in the crowding out of domestic firms. Using detailed firm-level data for the period 2001–2008, this paper examines the aggregate effect of FDI on the survival of domestic private firms in Viet Nam. We estimate the impact of both horizontal and vertical FDI and explore how the presence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) influences the exit hazard for private firms. The results suggest that horizontal and upstream FDI raise the exit hazard significantly, while downstream FDI may reduce the hazard. The presence of SOEs has a direct negative effect on the survival odds of local private firms in the same industry, but there is also an indirect impact on the exit hazard from FDI. Local firms are more vulnerable to foreign entry in sectors with high SOE shares. Looking at the net effects of FDI during the period 2001–2008, we find that results vary between sectors and over time but that the overall impact has been surprising small. The paper also discusses policy conclusions and implications for empirical analyses of spillovers from FDI.

This paper attempts to measure the effect of resource misallocation on aggregate manufacturing total factor productivity, focusing on Vietnamese manufacturing firms during the period 2000–2009. One of the major findings of this paper is that there would have been substantial improvement in aggregate total factor productivity in Viet Nam in the absence of distortions. The results imply that potential productivity gains from removing distortions in Vietnamese manufacturing are large. We also find that smaller firms tend to face advantageous distortions, while larger firms tend to face disadvantageous ones. Moreover, the efficient size distribution is more dispersed than the actual size distribution. These results suggest that Viet Nam's policies may constrain its largest and most efficient producers, and coddle its smallest and least efficient ones.

This paper evaluates the conjecture that factory managers may not be offering a cost-minimizing configuration of compensation and workplace amenities by using manager and worker survey data from Better Work Vietnam. Working conditions are found to have a significant positive impact on global life assessments and reduce measures of depression and traumatic stress. We find significant deviations in manager perceptions of working conditions from those of workers. These deviations significantly impact a worker's perception of well-being and indicators of mental health. Such deviations may lead the factory manager to underprovide certain workplace amenities relative to the cost-minimizing configuration, which may in part explain the persistence of relatively poor working conditions in developing economies.

Do firms pay more taxes after formalization? The answer to this question is nontrivial. Tax noncompliance can be a persistent behavior among formerly informal firms. Analyzing the relationship between formalization and tax payments can also be challenging if nonswitching and switching firms have different characteristics. I use a panel dataset built from five small and medium-sized enterprise surveys conducted in Viet Nam from 2005 to 2013. By comparing nonswitching informal firms to switchers, I show that switchers are more likely to pay taxes and to pay a higher amount, thereby confirming heterogeneity. By comparing switchers before and after formalization, I find that formalization increases tax payment likelihood by 20% and the tax amount paid by 93%. A control function approach indicates that my results are robust to potential endogeneity of formalization. Therefore, this paper provides supportive evidence for a key public policy rationale to promote formalization: increased tax revenues.

This chapter attempts to explore the weak points in the energy system that prevent Viet Nam from achieving energy security. Fundamental impediments are the lack of energy inefficiency in major industries, especially in export-oriented manufacturing and transport. Moreover, the insecurity is also derived from the growing reliance on fossil fuel import for thermal power generation that threatens local environment, thus having an adverse impact on climate change process. Extreme reliance on fossil fuel import created a significant risk in the energy supply security for the country. In addition, with the phasing out of all nuclear power stations and still negligible contribution of renewables (except hydropower) in the electricity grid, primary energy supply is less diversified, and it is forecast that half of electricity generation will be derived from coal by 2030. The implication is that improving energy efficiency in energy-intensive sectors must be the top priority for achieving energy security in the country, in which transport leaves a huge room for energy-use enhancement. In addition, reducing the barriers in renewable energy financing to attract more private investment is essential to unlock the potential of renewables deployment that brings multiple benefits for securing national energy and reducing carbon emissions.