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Franchising occurred in Vietnam during the implementation of government policy for economic reform and openness in the mid-1990s. The Vietnam-specific franchise law was passed in January 2006 to create a stable growth in the franchise sector in Vietnam. The legal framework in Vietnam generally follows international legal frameworks. However, the legal framework of franchising businesses is still uncertain. This paper explores Vietnam's franchising law and displays a comparison to the legal framework of Thai franchising law and the Republic of Korea franchising law. The paper concludes that while Vietnam's franchising law generally conforms to international standards, some legal issues should be addressed for further development of the Vietnamese franchising sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how return connectedness exhibits potential linkages among 17 economies over a 20-year period starting in 2001. We obtained three main results by employing the dynamic connectedness approach, which is based on vector auto-regression (VAR), to calculate generalized forecast error decompositions. First, although the financial crisis (2007–2008) experienced a high level of connectedness, the spillover index spiked during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. Second, the "return shock sender" is a community of countries that includes the United States, Australia, and European countries, while Vietnam is immune to financial linkages. Third, we discovered the predictive power of U.S. economic policy uncertainty and disease fear with market volatility for the Vietnamese return connectedness. As a result, our research identifies a range of relevant policies to mitigate spillover risks in the context of financial stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of economic policies on the development of Vietnam's electronics industry. We identified, reviewed, evaluated and interviewed various stakeholders in the industry about the policies implemented by the Vietnamese government during the period 1986–2017. We argue that while the policy aiming at learning through technological spillover from foreign direct investment led to the specific level of the technological development, problems during its implementation, coupled with institutional failures brought about unintended consequences. We conclude that trade liberalisation alone did not deliver the desired technological upgrading for domestic firms in Vietnam. Our paper provides policy implications for technological development in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial inclusion has generally been considered an effective mechanism to support economic growth and reduce Vietnam's poverty for the last decade. While the importance of financial inclusion to economic growth or macroeconomic stability has been widely examined, it appears that the degree of financial inclusion across Vietnam has not attracted attention from academics and policymakers. In particular, a convergence of financial inclusion across provinces in Vietnam has never been examined. This paper is conducted to examine the static and dynamic distributions of financial inclusion across provinces in Vietnam. The latest three biennial surveys from 2014 to 2018 and a novel approach known as the dynamic kernel density function are used in this study. Our results indicate that Vietnam's economic growth and development over the 2014–2018 period is relatively inclusive. The evidence also demonstrates that households provided with access to multiple sources of finance depend significantly on the provincial level of income. We also find that provinces located in the national key economic regions, including (i) the Northern region and (ii) the Southern region, appear to achieve a higher degree of financial inclusiveness. Our findings also confirm the catching-up from the financially disadvantaged provinces to financially advantaged provinces locating within the key economic regions. We argue that understanding the asymmetric effect of economic growth on financial inclusion will be helpful for the Vietnamese government in formulating and implementing economic policies promptly to secure the sustainable and inclusive goals of economic growth and development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the adoption of an "open door" economic poli<:y in 1986, drug trafficking in Vietnam has increased significantly. In 1997, Vietnam ratified the three UN drug control conventions and launched efforts to bring its national laws into line with them. As a newcomer to these international standards, Vietnam lacked experience in developing laws to combat drug trafficking. Fifteen years on, how well does Vietnamese legislation comply with the internattional requirements? How could compliance and, more broadly, the relevant legislation be improved?. The first part of this paper draws a picture of drug trafficking in Vietnam since the "open door" economic policy was adopted. The second part analyses the, government's legislative action over the past fifteen years to combat drug-related crime. The analysis reveals some inconsistencies with the UN standards and, moreover, some inherent problems in the recent formulation of the Vietnamese drug-related laws that require rectification through legislative clarification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most striking features of the economic development that has occurred in the East Asian region has been the influential role of the state in directing its course. Vietnam is also following this well-worn path of state-led developmentalism. The principal contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we place the Vietnamese experience in comparative historical and conceptual perspective. It is suggested that the structure of the Vietnamese state itself and the distinctive nature of the policies it has undertaken are reflections of the country's traumatic recent history and the fact that its leadership is notionally “communist.” Our second contribution is to detail some of the more important aspects of this process. We provide two case studies which focus on the role of state-owned enterprises and decentralisation initiatives which demonstrate that, despite the frequently ad hoc and contingent nature of the developmental project and an absence of the sort of state capacity that distinguished the likes of Japan in its heyday, the Vietnamese government is overseeing economic development in creative and surprisingly effective ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why did a gradualist transition approach achieve different performances among socialist economies in the 1980s? Why did some socialist economies never try a gradualist approach to economic liberalization? This paper develops a model to show that the liberalization of a socialist economy has two opposite effects on the rent captured by government. The initial economic condition determines the relative strength of the two effects, and consequently the transition path and performance. In addition, a gradualist reform strategy adopted by a rent-seeking government cannot finish the transition toward a complete market economy. To achieve that goal, a new constitutional order and the rule of law are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue present results from three research projects on Vietnam looking, respectively, at poverty dynamics; globalization, production and poverty; and at foreign direct investment. Vietnam has seen a striking reduction in poverty since its opening to the outside world in the early 1990s under its doi moi economic reform programme, and evidence for this poverty reduction is not sensitive to where the poverty line is drawn. Inequality, however, has risen. An important part of Vietnam's reform programme has been the rapid development of labour-intensive manufactured exports such as garments and footwear, partly driven by foreign investment, while the domestic market has remained quite protected. Employment growth has been disappointing, though, since Vietnamese industry has been shedding labour as it catches up with world standards of productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global garment and textile industries face changing international trade regimes, concerns with labour standards, new competitors and forms of competition. These challenges have a differentiated impact on developing-country producers and workers. One potential 'winner' is Vietnam. This paper uses a global value-chain framework to analyse the Vietnamese experience. It maps Vietnam's changing position in the global industry, and probes ties between Vietnamese firms and global buyers. It explores links within the Vietnamese garment and textiles sectors, and considers the impact of global challenges on Vietnamese firms and workers. This helps distinguish who are the potential 'winners' and 'losers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paradox of Vietnam's economic performance in the 1990s has been that despite rapid economic growth, extensive economic reforms, increased openness and significant reductions in poverty, the rate of employment growth has been disappointing. Conventional explanations of the slow growth of employment emphasize the incomplete nature of the economic reform process emphasizing three key areas - trade policy, the role of state-owned enterprises and labour market policies - which have led to resources being misallocated to the detriment of labour-intensive export sectors and the private sector. The paper shows that the slow growth of industrial employment in Vietnam has not been a result of an excessive concentration of resources on capital-intensive industries or state-owned enterprises. It is primarily the changes which have occurred within industries, resulting in increases in labour productivity from the very low levels at the beginning of the 1990s, that have prevented industry from absorbing more workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]