Urbanization and renewable energy consumption in the emerging ASEAN markets: A comparison between short and long-run effects.

The emerging markets in the ASEAN region, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, have put great effort into achieving dual objectives: (i) supporting economic growth and (ii) combating environmental degradation simultaneously. These objectively depend on the fast urbanization taking place in these countries. While increased energy consumption from urbanization supports economic growth, urbanization is a key driver of environmental degradation. This paper examines a potential link between urbanization and renewable energy consumption, primarily ignored in current literature, particularly in the ASEAN-5 countries. Findings from this paper indicate that, despite the adverse effect of urbanization on renewable energy consumption in the short run, a positive effect is found in the long run for these emerging ASEAN markets, except Malaysia. The Philippines appears to balance well between urbanization and renewable energy consumption in the short and long run. Policy implications have emerged based on the findings of this paper.

From foreign direct investment to environmental regulations: Does a feedback effect ever exist?

This study revisits the feedback effect from foreign direct investments (FDI) on environmental regulations under the presence of the host country's political structure. Such a relationship may encounter the endogeneity problem due to the omitted variable bias and reverse causality. As such, the two-step system generalized method of moments is employed. Using data from 21 OECD countries from 1990 to 2019, we confirm that FDI flows influence environmental regulations, but such an effect is conditional on the host country's political constraints. Specifically, FDI increases (decreases) the stringency of environmental regulations if domestic political constraints are sufficiently high (low). Understanding the mechanisms of how FDI flows can affect environmental regulations allows countries to revise their policies to attract more FDI flows to support economic growth while simultaneously minimising their negative effects on the environment.

Understanding the characteristics of the household energy transition in a developing country.

Understanding the energy transition process in developing countries is crucial to implement policies to reduce the use of traditional fossil fuel-based energy sources, which increase pollution, worsen global climate change, and negatively impact people's health. Existing literature indicates that households account for approximately 25% of total energy consumption for consumption and production activities. However, understanding the energy consumption patterns of choices of energy sources and their determinants has largely been neglected in the existing literature. As such, this study uses the multivariate probit model to identify the factors influencing household energy choices in Vietnam, using data from 2016 to 2020 from the Vietnamese Households Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS). Our study focuses on how households' multiple occupations, particularly in rural areas, affect energy sources choices. We find that households participate in different agricultural sub-sectors simultaneously, resulting in differential access to multiple energy sources. Households engaging in cultivation, forestry, and animal husbandry activities are more likely to choose coal, fuelwood, and biomass as the primary energy sources for production and daily uses. In contrast, higher household income and household head with higher education level also increases the likelihood of choosing cleaner energy choices for daily uses and production activities. In addition, our empirical findings confirm the validity of the "energy stacking" hypothesis rather than the "energy ladders" hypothesis - two contrasting hypotheses concerning household energy transition in the literature. Policy implications have emerged based on the findings of this paper to enhance the clean energy transition in Vietnam in achieving sustainable economic development and social transformation and her commitment to combating global climate change issues.

Does gender and education of the households' heads matter for wealth accumulation in Vietnam? Evidence from a recent decade.

Asians believe that education plays a crucial role in earning higher income for individuals and accumulating larger wealth for households. Educational achievements have been generally considered an indicator of success. However, gender bias in favour of males as the household heads still exists in Asian societies due to the significant influence of Confucian belief. This study investigates the independent effect of education and gender of the households' heads and their joint effect on household wealth in the Vietnamese context in the most recent decade using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) between 2010 and 2020. Our study uses quantile regression and propensity score matching methods to ensure the robustness of the empirical results. We find that the education of the household heads contributed to increased household wealth in Vietnam in 2010 and 2020. However, household wealth decreases across different wealth quantiles when the households' heads are females. These findings confirm the currently deep-rooted gender stereotypes and a 'gendered structure' economy in Vietnam and require attention from the Vietnamese government. In addition, our empirical results reveal that being a female as the household head with a degree/certificate from a general education will increase household wealth. Our empirical results have largely been consistent across different wealth distributions.

The determinants of financial inclusion from the households' perspectives in Vietnam.

Various studies have been conducted to measure financial inclusion at the country level. However, measuring financial inclusion at the household level has largely been neglected in the existing literature, particularly for emerging markets such as Vietnam. This study constructs an index of financial inclusion at the household level using the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS) in 2014, 2016, and 2018. We also identify the determinants of financial inclusion from the perspective of Vietnamese households. Our study also utilizes an ordered logit model to examine the effects of the determinants on each level of financial inclusion. Our empirical results reveal three key determinants, including (i) total income per household, (ii) relative income representing the difference between the average income of the province that the household currently lives in and the total income of this household, and (iii) the distance from the household to the nearest bank branch, are crucial factors driving the financial inclusion. While the total income per household positively enhances financial inclusion, relative income appears to reduce the degree of financial inclusion. Besides, distance to the nearest bank branch poses another challenge in achieving the financial inclusion goals in Vietnam in the future.

The economic circumstances of widows in Vietnam.

Information on the living conditions of widows in Vietnam is limited. Prior studies of gender gaps have identified widows as vulnerable to the risks of poverty. However, widows are only included as a sub-group in broader studies of women's well-being. Large gaps remain in the knowledge based on the factors affecting both widows' susceptibility to poverty and the conditions or circumstances that might minimize these risks. This paper attempts to help redress these knowledge gaps by contributing an analysis of data from the 2018 Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys. The paper compares the likelihood of poverty for widowed and other households using probit regression. It also assesses whether widows who head up their households face different risks of poverty from those who live in other households. Finally, the paper examines the effects on the risk of poverty of a range of social, demographic and locational characteristics of widow households in Vietnam. Our results indicate that widowed households have experienced a higher probability of falling into poverty. Moreover, widow-headed households have faced more vulnerability to fresh water and housing, especially among widowed households. Policy implications have emerged based on the findings of this paper.

Stock market volatility from the Covid-19 pandemic: New evidence from the Asia-Pacific region.

Responses from stock markets to the Covid-19 pandemic appear to change over time. Recent responses might differ as herd mentality in stock markets tends to become herd immunity to the pandemic. This study revisits the pandemic's effects on the Asia-Pacific countries' market volatility over the past 25 months. Primarily, we examine the changes of the impacts of the pandemic on volatility between the first pandemic period (2020) and the second period (January 2021-January 2022). Our findings indicate that implementing pandemic control measures helps reduce market volatility at the country and region levels. The effects of new Covid-19 cases and pandemic control measures on market volatility have been dramatically fading since 2021. The Toda-Yamamoto causality test and the panel impulse response functions from panel VAR estimation are also used for robustness analysis. Based on our findings, it appears that the current pandemic may no longer be blamed for stock market volatility in the Asia-Pacific region.

Does educational attainment and gender inequalities affect wealth accumulation? Evidence from Vietnam.

Vietnamese have always believed that education is crucial in increasing income and accumulating household wealth. Educational attainment has been an indicator of successful people. As such, higher education is generally linked to higher income and wealth in Vietnam. However, the existing literature has largely neglected empirical analysis of the education-wealth relationship. We use data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS) in ten years between 2008 and 2018 to examine the effects of educational attainment on Vietnamese households' wealth accumulation. The threshold and the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions with robust standards for cross-sectional data analysis are employed. Selected households' demographic characteristics are also incorporated in our analysis. Our results indicate that a university degree was sufficient to accumulate wealth in 2008. However, higher educational attainment is linked with higher wealth accumulation in 2018. For people without a university degree or higher, achieving intermediate vocational training certificates is required to maximize wealth accumulation in both 2008 and 2018. Our empirical results confirm that household demographic factors, including age, marital status, gender, and urban-rural living areas, significantly affect wealth accumulation. In addition, inequality in households' wealth accumulation caused by gender and urban-rural living areas declined over the ten years.

Does the COVID-19 pandemic matter for market risks across sectors in Vietnam?

Vietnam has been considered one of the few countries that put the COVID-19 pandemic under control and successfully achieved solid economic growth in 2020. However, the national economy has been hit hard by the pandemic in 2021. National borders across the countries have been closed for an extended time. As such, supporting local industries is essential to sustain economic growth. This study measures the market risks across industries in Vietnam before and during the COVID-19 period. Two important measures, the Value-at-Risk and the Conditional Value-at-Risk, are used for the 2012-2020 period. We then extend the analyses by estimating the market risks using the monthly VaR for the 2019-2020 period. Key findings from this study can be summarized as follows. First, market risks across the Vietnamese industries have changed significantly in response to the pandemic, both at the level and their rankings. Second, among the changes, the services industry appears to be hardest hit by the pandemic as expected, whereas the education sector has significantly improved its standing during these challenging times. Our analysis also confirms that complete lockdowns negatively affect the market risk of various Vietnamese industries. We note that the service industry is a critical contributor to the Vietnamese economy and that lockdown during the pandemic does matter to the market risk. Policy implications have emerged on these findings.

The convergence of financial inclusion across provinces in Vietnam: A novel approach.

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.

Does the Kuznets curve apply for financial development and environmental degradation in the Asia-Pacific region?

The Asia-Pacific region has faced conflicting objectives of achieving sustainable economic growth and simultaneously improving environmental quality. This paper, the first of its kind, applies the concept of the Kuznets curve to financial development in this region. The long-term effect of financial development on environmental degradation is examined using a sample of 26 countries in the 2007-2017 period. This paper uses the long-term estimation techniques - the panel autoregressive distributed lag, including the pooled mean group model; the mean group; and the dynamic fixed effect estimator. The second-generation Granger test is used to determine the causality between financial development and environmental degradation. The U-shaped nexus and a bi-directional relationship between financial development and environmental degradation are found.

Foreign investment, economic growth, and environmental degradation since the 1986 "Economic Renovation" in Vietnam.

Vietnam has achieved impressive economic growth principally supported by foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last three decades. However, environmental deterioration is observed. No studies have ever been conducted to examine the link between economic growth and environmental degradation, focusing on the important role of the FDI, in Vietnam in both short run and long run. Using the ARDL and the threshold regression techniques for 35 years from 1986, Vietnam's "Doi Moi" (economic renovation), the U-shaped relationship between economic growth and the environmental quality is found in the long run and at the upper threshold of economic growth. FDI in the long run and at the upper threshold of economic growth also leads to further deterioration of the environmental quality. Also, consumption of fossil fuel energy deteriorates the environment in the long run, and at any level of economic growth. These findings simply mean that Vietnam has to adopt a new growth model with the focus on the quality FDI projects and clean energy sources to achieve the dual objectives: (i) sustained economic growth and (ii) improved environmental quality.