Growth, Structural Transformation, and Rural Change in Viet Nam: A Rising Dragon on the Move

Many developing countries-Viet Nam included-continue to struggle to raise incomes per capita. A common feature of the growth and development process is a fundamental change in the pattern of economic activity, as households reallocate labour from traditional agriculture to more productive forms of agriculture and modern industrial and service sectors. Broad structural transformation and widespread poverty reduction is the combined result of these large-scale shifts in work and labour allocation when they realise desired development goals.

The roots of this volume grow from when the first pilot Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) was carried out in 2002. The success of this inspired the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM) in Hanoi, the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (CAP-IPSARD), the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs (ILSSA), and the Development Economics Research Group (DERG) of the University of Copenhagen, together with Danida and later on UNU-WIDER, to plan and carry out a more ambitious VARHS from 2006, increasing coverage and representativeness to more than 2,150 families and 12 provinces across the various regions of Viet Nam.

The VARHS covering these very same households had by 2014 been carried out five times, i.e. every two years. It is on this high quality panel data foundation and almost 15 years of study and policy work using the VARHS data the present volume builds, in its effort to bring out the essential rural micro-economic characteristics and insights of a dynamic South-East Asian economy in transition from a centrally planned towards a more market based economy.

Finn Tarp, Director, UNU-WIDER and Professor of Development Economic, University of Copenhagen

Finn Tarp is Director of UNU-WIDER and Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen. He has some 38 years of experience in academic and applied development economics research, teaching, and policy analysis; and his field experience covers more than 20 years of in-country assignments in 35 countries across the developing world, including many years of work in Viet Nam. Finn Tarp has published widely in leading international academic journals alongside a series of books, and he is a member of the World Bank Chief Economist's Council of Eminent Persons. He has been awarded the Vietnamese Government Medals of Honour for 'Support to the Planning and Investment System' and the 'Cause of Science and Technology'.