Essays on Impact evaluation: new empirical evidence from Vietnam

Keywords: Credit, cash transfers, remittances, migration, poverty, inequality, impact evaluation, Vietnam, Asia

This study estimates the impact of various economic flows including government-subsidized micro-credit, informal credit, public and private transfers, international remittances, and migration on poverty and inequality for Vietnam using Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2004 and 2006. Impact evaluation methods employed in the study include fixedeffects regression and difference-in-differences with propensity score matching. Poverty is measured by three Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty indexes, while inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient, Theil’s L and Theil’s T indexes. It is found that the impact of the governmental micro-credit, public transfers and international remittances on poverty reduction is very limited. On the contrary, informal credit, domestic (internal) private transfers and migration have positive and statistically significant impacts on poverty reduction. The domestic private transfers have the largest effect on the total poverty of the population due to a high impact on expenditure and a large coverage of the poor. Regarding inequality, both government-subsidized micro-credit and informal credit do not affect inequality significantly. Public transfers and international remittances increase inequality slightly, while domestic private transfers and migration lead to a decrease in inequality.