The impact of access to credit on household welfare in rural Vietnam

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of household borrowing from the formal financial sector, the determinants of credit rationing by the formal sector and the impact of credit on household welfare in rural Vietnam. We find that education, savings, the area devoted to farming and the availability of formal credit are important determinants of both household borrowing and credit rationing by the formal sector. We also find that credit has a positive (albeit small) effect on household welfare in rural Vietnam. Our findings have policy implications for land and banking sector reform

Does access to finance improve household welfare?

In this paper, the author develops an econometric framework to analyze the effect of access to credit on the economic welfare of households in Vietnam. The findings confirm that household credit contributes positively and significantly to the economic welfare of households in terms of per capita expenditure, per capita food expenditure and per capita non-food expenditure. The positive effect of credit on household economic welfare is observed regardless of whether they are poor or better-off households. The author also finds that credit has a greater positive effect on the economic welfare of poorer households and finds that the age of the household head, the household size, land ownership, and savings and the availability of credit at village level are key factors that affect household borrowing. Some policy implications are drawn

Day-of-the-week trading patterns of individual and institutional investors

This study examines the day-of-the-week trading patterns of individual and institutional investors. Consistent with previous evidence, we find an increase in the proportion of Monday trading volume attributable to individual investors relative to other days of the week. However, we document that this increase results from a reduction in trading by institutional investors, rather than from an absolute increase in trading by individual investors. In fact, the absolute trading volume by individual investors is significantly lower on Monday than on any other weekday. We also document that the degree of day-of-the-week effect varies with the quality and dissemination of public information proxied by the market capitalization of each company

Tax policy and housing prices: evidence from Vietnam using event study approach

This paper examines the effect of tax policy on housing prices in Vietnam for the period from October 2004 to September 2016 using event study approach. The authors find that all five key changes made to the personal income tax, corporate income tax and non-farm land use tax have caused the housing prices to decline on average 6-11% during the event window, but only the impact of the personal income tax changes is statistically significant. The fact that changes in housing prices are mostly seen prior to the effective date of the tax policy change implies that tax policy change indeed has influenced the housing prices in Vietnam. Although this research has not examined the mechanism through which tax policy has influenced the housing prices, the findings offer some implications for the government in terms of using tax policy for controlling housing prices in Vietnam. The research is also of very few papers in this literature that use the event study approach

Current constraints of Vietnamese banking system

This paper presents a short discussion on the weaknesses of the banking system in Vietnam. Using focus group approach, the author has analyzed four important areas of weakness, including (i) maturity mismatching, liquidity and social costs; (ii) poor governance and risk of loan losses; (iii) strategy arid products; (iv) state batik's dependence. The author believes that the first step in restructuring should be building a set of operational standards based on Vietnam context, instead of applying theoretically international experience

How do investors price stocks? - Evidence with real-time data from Vietnam

Our paper employs a dataset that comprises real-time data, which, in our study, is defined as the best known data available to investors at the time of making decision. The research was inspired by comments by industry leaders at an international conference in finance in Vietnam in 2016, basically implying that academic research findings were not useful to investors because they had not done in the way that investors think and do. Drawing on an alike experiment study using realtime data for a period from October 2010 to April 2014, our paper documents that the value and liquidity effect do not exist in Vietnam and the size effect is weak. Specifically, we find that growth and high liquidity stocks outperform and do not find strong evidence for the outperformance of small stocks. This finding contradicts the general literature, which suggests that value, low liquidity and small stocks outperform, but supports similar contradicting findings for emerging markets. The findings from our research are important to investors in Vietnam market because they are drawn on the decision making basis that investors in this market normally do. Our research findings also suggest the use of a multifactor pricing model that is relevant for valuing stocks in Vietnam. In addition, to check the reliability of our dataset and the robustness of our conclusions, we repeated the same procedure using two samples of historical data and compared with results from our data. The additional analysis confirms the reliability of our data and findings

Credit composition and income inequality in Vietnam: an empirical analysis

Purpose This paper examines credit composition and income inequality reduction in Vietnam. In particular, the authors focus on the distinction between policy and commercial credits and investigate whether these two types of credit adversely affect on income inequality. The authors also examine whether the educational level and institutional quality condition the impact of policy credit on income inequality. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the primary data set, which contains a panel of 60 provinces collected from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam from 2002 to 2016. The authors employ the generalized method of moments to solve the endogenous problem. Findings The authors show that while commercial credit increases income inequality, policy credit reduces income inequality in Vietnam. In addition, we provide evidence that the institutional quality and educational level condition the impact of policy credit on income inequality. Based on the findings, the paper implies that it was not the size of the private credit but its composition that mattered in reducing income inequality due to the asymmetric effects of different types of credit. Practical implication The government should focus on credit for the poor by helping them to exit poverty through investing in human capital, health and micro enterprises activities. Originality/value This is the first study that examines the links between the two components of credit and income inequality as well as the constraints of the links. The authors argue that analyzing the separate effects of commercial and policy credits is more important for explaining the role of credit in income inequality than the size of total credit

Cellular immunotherapy using dendritic cells against multiple myeloma

Cellular therapy with dendritic cells (DCs) is emerging as a useful immunotherapeutic tool to treat multiple myeloma (MM). DC-based idiotype vaccination was recently suggested to induce idiotype-specific immune responses in MM patients. However, the clinical results so far have been largely disappointing, and the clinical effectiveness of such vaccinations in MM still needs to be demonstrated. DC-based therapies against MM may need to be boosted with other sources of tumor-associated antigens, and potent DCs should be recruited to increase the effectiveness of treatment. DCs with both high migratory capacity and high cytokine production are very important for effective DC-based cancer vaccination in order to induce high numbers of Th1-type CD4+ T cells and CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes. The tumor microenvironment is also important in the regulation of tumor cell growth, proliferation, and the development of therapeutic resistance after treatment. In this review, we discuss how the efficacy of DC vaccination in MM can be improved. In addition, novel treatment strategies that target not only myeloma cells but also the tumor microenvironment are urgently needed to improve treatment outcomes

Integration of evidence across human and model organism studies: A meeting report.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and Joint Institute for Biological Sciences at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory hosted a meeting attended by a diverse group of scientists with expertise in substance use disorders (SUDs), computational biology, and FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) data sharing. The meeting\u27s objective was to discuss and evaluate better strategies to integrate genetic, epigenetic, and \u27omics data across human and model organisms to achieve deeper mechanistic insight into SUDs. Specific topics were to (a) evaluate the current state of substance use genetics and genomics research and fundamental gaps, (b) identify opportunities and challenges of integration and sharing across species and data types, (c) identify current tools and resources for integration of genetic, epigenetic, and phenotypic data, (d) discuss steps and impediment related to data integration, and (e) outline future steps to support more effective collaboration-particularly between animal model research communities and human genetics and clinical research teams. This review summarizes key facets of this catalytic discussion with a focus on new opportunities and gaps in resources and knowledge on SUDs