Current Institutional Affiliation
Senior Economist, Development Research Group (Poverty Team), World Bank

Award Information

International Dissertation Research Fellowship 1999
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Economics & Population Studies, University of Michigan
Firm and Worker Responses to Economic Reform in Vietnam

I propose to study how Vietnamese enterprise reforms have changed firm behavior and how these reforms have impacted on the lives of workers. Economic theory of the firm emphasizes the importance of governance structure in determining firm performance and behavior. Different forms of ownership, such as state and private ownership, are expected to yield different firm behaviors and outcomes due to varying organizational structures and incentive schemes. This study investigates the relation between firm heterogeneity in behavior and performance and firm ownership in the context of post-reform Vietnam. Specifically, I am interested in the addressing of the following three questions: (1) how has the restructuring of the state sector and the development of a private sector affected firm productivity, investment decisions, and the adoption of new technologies; (2) beyond categories of ownership, what are the relevant characteristics and behaviors which distinguish state firms from the de novo private sector and the foreign owned sector; and (3) have the types of skills demanded by firms changed, and if so have workers been able to adapt to the changing demand for skill through training and job mobility? I will address these questions in a ten month period in Vietnam through collaborative work with two research institutions: the Institute for Economic Research in Ho Chi Minh City and the Center for Population Studies at the Ministry of Labor in Hanoi.

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