Richard Record

2004 – MSc Economics (with special reference to development in the Asia-Pacific region), School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

2000 – BSc Economics, London School of Economics, University of London.

The poverty impact of reforming the private sector enabling environment in Vietnam (or Why do firms invest in a poor business environment? – Some explanations from Vietnam

Supervisors: Kunal Sen and Khalid Nadvi

Economic development, investment climate, private sector development, trade.

Vietnam has achieved a remarkable transition by any standards since reforms began under “doi moi” in 1986. From a closed economy with no real private sector in the 1980s, the country has moved from food insecurity to food surplus, and is now one of the world’s leading exporters in a number of sectors ranging from rice, coffee and pepper, to footwear and garments, and increasingly in electronics and light manufactured products. Economic growth rates are now second only to China in the region. Poverty reduction has been very impressive, dropping from 58 percent of the population in 1992 to 16 percent in 2006 (according to national measures). Vietnam’s growth story has also been remarkably pro-poor with an almost unparalleled elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to growth of greater than one.

A key driver of this successful growth story has been the emergence of a domestic private sector. Vietnam now has one of the most dynamic domestic private sectors in the region and this transition has been driven largely by reforming the environment in which the private sector operates. The country’s development has not, however, followed the “conventional” path of economic development and policy-makers have frequently surprised commentators and indeed ignored the advice of outsiders. Many key investment climate reforms have emerged incrementally as local or sub-national authorities compete with each other to attract outside investment. Furthermore, Vietnam’s business environment is characterised by rent seeking, high degrees of informality and unstable property rights, yet contrary to many expectations, domestic private sector investment is healthy. Firms are adept at using informal institutional arrangements to mitigate the effects of an otherwise poor investment climate.

The aim of this thesis is, therefore, to dig deeper into the underlying institutional determinants of what makes a conducive private sector enabling environment, what really matters and why. Taking Vietnam as a case-in-point, the study aims to investigate the nature of the country’s changing investment climate by trying to measure the extent to which sub-national private sector reforms have had an impact on provincial and enterprise outcomes, and to assess the mechanisms, both formal and informal, that firms use in order to transact, invest and do business.

2008 ‘Vietnam’s new industrial policy – the role of the sub-national business environment in facilitating foreign direct investment’, paper due to be presented at the 12th EADI General Conference, Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Development, Geneva, Switzerland, 24-28 June.

2007 ‘Lessons from Malawi’s Experience Attempting to Reform the Business Environment’, paper presented at the Donor Committee on Enterprise Development African Regional Consultative Conference – Creating Better Business Environments for Enterprise Development: African and Global Lessons for More Effective Donor Practices, Accra, Ghana, 5-7 November.

2007 ‘From Policy to Practice – Changing Government Attitudes towards the Private Sector in Malawi’, Journal of International Development 19:6, 805-816.

2007 ‘Private Sector Investment in an Unstable Business Environment – Evidence from the 2006 Investment Climate Assessment of Malawi’, paper presented at the Centre for the Study of African Economies 2007 Conference, Oxford University, 20 March (with S. Davies).

2006 ‘An Economic Perspective on Malawi’s Medical “Brain Drain”’, Globalisation and Health 2:12 (with A Mohiddin).

2005 ‘Competition and Cooperation: Vietnam’, in A. Kuchiki and M. Tsuji, (eds.) Industrial Clusters in Asia: Analyses of their Competition and Cooperation, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan (with A. McCarty and J. Riedel).

2005 ‘Corruption, Good Governance and the Economic Development of Vietnam’, paper presented at the Vietnam Development Forum Tokyo Conference, Tokyo, 18 June.

2005 ‘Globalisation, Moving Up and the Industrial Learning Process in Vietnam’, Paper presented at the first annual conference of the IMF Vietnam Economic Research Consortium, Hanoi, 24 May (with S. Robertson).

2004 ‘Industrial Clusters in Vietnam’, in A. Kuchiki and M. Tsuji, (eds.) Industrial Clusters in Asia: Analyses of their Competition and Cooperation, Tokyo: JETRO-IDE (with J. Riedel).

Employment

Trade Specialist - The World Bank, East Asia and Pacific Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, Vientiane, Lao PDR (Oct 08 – current).

Consultant - Commonwealth Secretariat, Trade Section, London, UK (Feb-Apr 08).

Economic Advisor - The World Bank, Private Sector Development, Lilongwe, Malawi (Oct 06-Sep 07).

ODI Fellow - Ministry of Trade and Private Sector Development, Lilongwe, Malawi (Oct 04-Sep 06).

Consultant - Asian Development Bank / DFID, Making Markets Work Better for the Poor Project, Hanoi, Vietnam (Jul-Sep 04).

Researcher (part-time) - ActionAid International, London, UK (Nov 03-May 04).

Economist - Mekong Economics Ltd, Hanoi, Vietnam (Mar 02-Sep 03).

Funding

ESRC +3