Targeting the Poor in Vietnam using a Small Area Estimation Method

To estimate the poverty rate at the commune level, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs firstly collects information on households’ income per capita, and compares their income with a defined poverty line. A household is identified as a poor one if their income per capita is below the poverty line. Then, the poverty rate of a commune is simply the ratio of the defined poor households in that commune. This method can raise questions about the quality of the collected data on income. This paper examines the quality of expenditure data collected in this simple way. It is found that the expenditure data collected in the simple way are considerably lower than expenditure data collected using detailed questionnaires. Thus collection of expenditure or income data using simple questionnaires tends to underestimate the actual expenditure or income. For poverty targeting in small areas such as communes or districts, this paper suggests the application of this small areas estimation method

Impact Evaluation of Multiple Overlapping Programs using Difference-in-differences with Matching

Difference-in-differences with matching is a popular method in impact evaluation. Traditional impact evaluation methods including difference-in-differences with matching often deal with impact measurement of a single binary program. Imbens (1999) and Lechner (2001) extend the matching method to the case of multiple mutually exclusive programs. Frölich (2002) discusses different impact evaluation methods in the similar context. In reality, one can participate in several programs simultaneously and the programs may be overlapping. This paper discusses the method of difference-in-differences with matching in a general context of multiple overlapping programs. The method is applied to measure impacts of formal and informal credit in Vietnam using panel data from two Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2002 and 2004

A Matching Method with Panel Data

Difference-in-differences with matching is a popular method to measure the impact of an intervention in health as well as social sciences. This method requires baseline data, i.e., data before interventions, which are not always available in reality. Instead, panel data with two time periods are often collected after interventions begin. In this paper, a simple matching method is proposed to measure impact of an intervention using two-period panel data after the intervention

Does Agriculture Help Poverty and Inequality Reduction? Evidence from Vietnam

This paper measures impacts of production of crops, forestry, livestock and aquaculture on household welfare, poverty and inequality in rural Vietnam using fixed-effects regressions. Data used in this paper are from Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys 2002 and 2004. It is found that impact estimates of the production of crops and forestry on per capita income and consumption expenditure are not statistically significant. Impact estimates of the livestock production are positive and statistically significant for per capita income, but not statistically significant for per capita expenditure. However, the aquacultural production has positive and statistically significant impacts on both income and expenditure. As a result, the aquacultural production helps the producing households reduce the poverty incidence by 4.3 percentage points. It also decreases the poverty gap and poverty severity indexes of the producing households by around 13 percent and 15 percent, respectively. The aquacultural production also reduces the rural expenditure inequality, albeit at an extremely small magnitude.Agriculture, farm households, welfare, poverty, inequality, Vietnam, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, I32, Q12, O13,

Selection of Control Variables in Propensity Score Matching: Evidence from a Simulation Study

Propensity score matching is a widely-used method to measure the effect of a treatment in social as well as health sciences. An important issue in propensity score matching is how to select conditioning variables in estimation of the propensity score. It is commonly mentioned that only variables which affect both program participation and outcomes are selected. Using Monte Carlo simulation, this paper shows that efficiency in estimation of the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated can be gained if all the available observed variables in the outcome equation are included in the estimation of the propensity score.Impact evaluation, treatment effect, propensity score matching, covariate selection, Monte Carlo

Estimating Impact of a Continuous Program under a Conditional Independence Assumption

Traditional literature on impact evaluation often deals with binary programs. In reality, a program can provide different amounts of treatment for people, and it is regarded as a continuous variable. This paper discusses impact evaluation of a continuous program using matching methods and illustrates how to estimate impact of foreign remittances on per capita expenditure in Vietnam.Treatment effect, program impact, continuous program, matching, conditional independence

The Impact of Health Insurance for Children: Evidence from Vietnam

Although there are numerous studies on impact evaluation of overall health insurance, little is known on the impact of health insurance on health care utilization and out-of-pocket health care spending of children, especially in developing countries. This paper measures the impact of child health insurance on health care utilization and spending of children from 6 to 14 years old in Vietnam using two recent nationally representative surveys. Unlike previous empirical studies which found a positive effect of health insurance on health care utilization in Vietnam, we did not find a statistically significant effect of school health insurance as well as free health insurance for children on outpatient health care contacts. However, the school health insurance and free health insurance help the insured children decrease out-of-pocket spending per outpatient contact by around 14 and 26 percent, respectively.Child health insurance, impact evaluation, health care utilization, out-of-pocket spending, Vietnam

The Cost of Living Index for Poor Households: The Case of Vietnam

The paper aims to estimate the Fisher index during the period 1994-1997 to explore how well the Laspeyres index can serve as the cost of living index. It is shown that the Laspeyres results in an upward substitution bias, and the bias appears to be higher for the ultra-poor and the poor. It means that for the very poor group the Laspeyres index overestimates their cost of living. With a limited budget the poor tends to have substitution to ensure a certain level of living standard. This suggests a remarkable point that if the basket weights are not revised frequently the Laspeyres index can present a significant bias from the cost of living, and this bias tends to be higher for the poor group. Since there is not a significant difference in the CPI between the poor and the non-poor and the whole population, CPI can be used as an approximate index of living cost of the poor as well as the non-poor for a period from one to three years.Poverty measurement, living cost, CPI, household survey, Vietnam.

Public health services and health care utilization in Viet Nam

The main objectives of this paper are to review policies on health services and to provide an assessment of public health facilities and the access of people to health care services in Vietnam. Medical facilities and staffs in public establishments have been increasing. Health insurance has been expanded rapidly in the recent years. It is very encouraging that the poor and ethnic minority are more likely to be enrolled in health insurance than other people. In addition, we find that health insurance helps the insured increase health care utilization and reduce out-of-pocket spending. The density of medical staffs is also positively correlated with outpatient health care utilization. However, the quality of health care services and the access to health care services remain limited in poor, remote and mountainous areas.Health policy, health insurance, health care, Vietnam

Impacts of International and Internal Remittances on Household Welfare: Evidence from Viet Nam

This paper measures the impact of international and internal remittances on household welfare of remittances-receiving households using data from Viet Nam Household Living Standard Surveys 2002 and 2004. It is found that the receiving of international and internal remittances increased both income and consumption expenditures of the recipients. The impact of remittances on non-food expenditures tended to be higher than the impact on food expenditures. For international remittances, the impact on income was much higher than the impact on consumption expenditures. It means that a large proportion of international remittances were used for saving and investment. For the receipt of internal remittances, the impact on income was just slightly larger than the impact on consumption expenditures. In other words, most of the internal remittances were used for consumption expenditures.International remittances, internal remittances, household welfare, income, expenditures, Viet Nam