IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/keo/dpaper/dp2026-014.html

From Battlefield to Marketplace: Legacies, Highways and Polycentric Development in Vietnam

Author

Listed:
  • Manabu Nose

    (Keio University, Faculty of Economics)

  • Yasuyuki Sawada

    (University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics, Graduate School of Economics)

Abstract

Why do transport investments induce polycentric industrial growth in specific instances, rather than reinforcing existing cores? By investigating large-scale Greater Mekong Subregion highway projects in Northern Vietnam, where postwar state-led reconstruction restored monocentric urban structure following wartime devastation, this paper shows that later corridor investments generated nonlinear, polycentric industrial growth. Improved market access induced large manufacturing entry in agrarian peripheries, with effects amplified by local supply-chain depth. A spatial general equilibrium model with input-output linkages replicates this mechanism. The corridor raised income but widened spatial inequality, a trade-off mitigated by feeder-road complementarity. Infrastructure acts as a spatial big push only when connectivity and production networks jointly trigger new clusters. Overall, a structural shift from monocentric battlefield resilience to polycentric market expansion is catalyzed by infrastructure investments. *Revised DP2025-010

Suggested Citation

  • Manabu Nose & Yasuyuki Sawada, 2026. "From Battlefield to Marketplace: Legacies, Highways and Polycentric Development in Vietnam," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series DP2026-014, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    • Handle: RePEc:keo:dpaper:dp2026-014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ies.keio.ac.jp/upload/DP2026-014_EN.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:keo:dpaper:dp2026-014. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iekeijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.