IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/24945.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Growing Role of International Remittances in the Vietnamese Economy: Evidence from the Vietnam (Household) Living Standard Surveys

Author

Listed:
  • Pfau, Wade Donald
  • Giang, Long Thanh

Abstract

Our findings include that overseas remittances come from throughout the world, but are dominated by the United States as a main source. Also, over time, the destinations of foreign remittances are becoming more diverse as they move away from Ho Chi Minh city and other urban areas, in particular, to other regions and to rural areas. Nonetheless, the percentage of households receiving overseas remittances as held steady at around 5 to 7 percent of the population. Also, widows, the elderly, female headed households, and households where the head does not work disproportionately receive foreign remittances. This helps to ensure that foreign remittances actually improve equality in Vietnam with regard to per-capita household expenditures, though the improvements are quite small. Nonetheless, the improvements to income equality caused by overseas remittances are becoming more substantial over time. We also determine that overseas remittances are used primarily for consumption, and they are mainly provided by close family members including children, spouses, and siblings.

Suggested Citation

  • Pfau, Wade Donald & Giang, Long Thanh, 2010. "The Growing Role of International Remittances in the Vietnamese Economy: Evidence from the Vietnam (Household) Living Standard Surveys," MPRA Paper 24945, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:24945
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/24945/1/MPRA_paper_24945.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giang, Thanh Long & Pfau, Wade Donald, 2007. "The Elderly Population in Vietnam during Economic Transformation: An Overview," MPRA Paper 24948, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Margaret E. Grosh & Paul Glewwe, 1998. "Data Watch: The World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study Household Surveys," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 187-196, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Kiều hối
      by kastinsky in Dự đoán kinh tế Việt Nam on 2012-03-07 18:01:15

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pfau, Wade Donald, 2008. "Determinants and Impacts of International Remittances on Household Welfare in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 19038, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Pfau, Wade Donald & Giang, Thanh Long, 2009. "Remittances, Living Arrangements, and the Welfare of the Elderly," MPRA Paper 19121, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Giang, Thanh Long & Pfau, Wade Donald, 2007. "Patterns and Determinants of Living Arrangements for the Elderly in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 24949, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Sahn, David & Younger, Stephen D., 2003. "Polarization: Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons," Cahiers de recherche 0304, CIRPEE.
    5. Keil, Alwin & Saint-Macary, Camille & Zeller, Manfred, 2013. "Intensive Commercial Agriculture in Fragile Uplands of Vietnam: How to Harness its Poverty Reduction Potential while Ensuring Environmental Sustainability?," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 52(1), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Janz, Teresa & Augsburg, Britta & Gassmann, Franziska & Nimeh, Zina, 2023. "Leaving no one behind: Urban poverty traps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    7. Sharma, Sabal & Levinson, David, 2019. "Travel cost and dropout from secondary schools in Nepal," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 385-397.
    8. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2009. "Measuring intra‐household health inequality: explorations using the body mass index," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 13-36, April.
    9. Lien, Nguyen Huong & Westberg, Kate & Stavros, Constantino & Robinson, Linda J., 2018. "Family decision-making in an emerging market: Tensions with tradition," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 479-489.
    10. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & Paul Glewwe & Guo Li, 2002. "Markets, Human Capital and Inequality: Evidence from Rural China," International Economic Association Series, in: Richard B. Freeman (ed.), Inequality Around the World, chapter 5, pages 87-127, Palgrave Macmillan.
    11. T. Paul Schultz, 1999. "Health and Schooling Investments in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    12. Pfau, Wade Donald & Giang, Thanh Long, 2008. "Gender and Remittances in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 9928, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Carr-Hill, Roy, 2013. "Missing Millions and Measuring Development Progress," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 30-44.
    14. Pfau, Wade Donald & Giang, Thanh Long, 2008. "Gender and Remittance Flows in Vietnam during Economic Transformation," MPRA Paper 18859, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Giang, Thanh Long & Pfau, Wade Donald, 2008. "Determinants of Elderly Poverty in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 9927, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Glewwe, Paul & Phong Nguyen, 2002. "Economic mobility in Vietnam in the 1990s," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2838, The World Bank.
    17. Filmer, Deon*Pritchett, Lant, 1998. "Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data - or tears : with an application to educational enrollments in states of India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1994, The World Bank.
    18. Anderson, Kathryn & Pomfret, Richard, 2000. "Living Standards during Transition to a Market Economy: The Kyrgyz Republic in 1993 and 1996," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 502-523, September.
    19. Sharma, Sabal & Levinson, David, 2019. "Travel cost and dropout from secondary schools in Nepal," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 385-397.
    20. Wade Donald Pfau & Giang Thanh Long, 2008. "Groups Excluded from ‘Representative’ Household Surveys: An Analysis Based on Remittances Sent and Received in Vietnam," GRIPS Discussion Papers 08-15, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vietnam; remittances; household surveys;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • F24 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Remittances

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:24945. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.