Impact of inequality on economic growth in Vietnam during the 2002-2012 period

Abstract

“How does inaequality affect economic growth?” is a concern of the society. Yet, there are few studies that analyze and quantify the impact of inequality on growth in Vietnam. Most of the available studies applied qualitative method. Those that use quantitative method focus mainly on using income to measure inequality despite of the fact that expenditure may be a better representation for the measurment in developing countries. Moreover, due to limitation of data, duration of the studies is relatively short. This study, therefore, was conducted to compare the impact of GINI income and GINI expenditure on growth in Vietnam during the 2002-2012 period. Applying panel data that consist of 378 observations of 63 provinces during the period, the regresson results proved that GINI expenditure reflect the impact of inequality on growth clearer than that of income. The model also indicates an inverted U shape relationship between expenditure inequality and growth in real GDP per capita in Vietnam.

Keywords

• bất bình đẳng
• tăng trưởng
• việt nam
• gini thu nhập
• gini chi tiêu.