Where does pro-poor growth occur in Vietnam?

Abstract

Although Vietnam’s economic growth and poverty reduction for almost three decades have been remarkable, growth for poverty reduction is unequally distributed across the nation. The paper examines the cause of poverty and the impact of provincial economic growth on poverty alleviation, using the data of 63 provinces in Vietnam. The elasticity of poverty with respect to provincial economic growth is employed (the elasticities of headcount index, poverty gap index, and squared poverty index with respect to provincial economic growth) to identify the provinces where pro-poor growth has occurred. The elasticity of poverty with respect to provincial Gini coefficient is examined to identify the impact of expenditure inequality on poverty. The simultaneous equation system is estimated to analyze not only direct and indirect effects of the related variables, but also the causality effect between economic growth and the poverty elasticity with respect to both growth and the Gini coefficient.