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Economic and political stakes of the middle income group expansion in Vietnam

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Listed:
  • Jean-Philippe BERROU
  • Matthieu CLÉMENT
  • François COMBARNOUS
  • Dominique DARBON
  • Kim SA LE
  • Éric ROUGIER

Abstract

Middle class expansion in formerly poor countries has become the focus point of business groups, development banks and national governments over the latter decade. By naturalizing an income group into a social class with political agency, they misapprehend what exactly are these “people in the middle” and what exactly are their margins of influence on the economy and public policies. By combining microeconomic data on economic and social characteristics of middle income earners taken from the national representative living conditions survey and primary data on subjective perceptions of a representative sample of middle class household heads, we find that the Vietnamese middle-income earners (1) now represent a significant share of the population, (2) are strongly heterogeneous in terms of income, occupation and status, (3) comprises a large share of highly vulnerable households facing high individual risks uncovered by social protection, (4) is not a significant source of political change.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Philippe BERROU & Matthieu CLÉMENT & François COMBARNOUS & Dominique DARBON & Kim SA LE & Éric ROUGIER, 2019. "Economic and political stakes of the middle income group expansion in Vietnam," Working Paper 60228ab9-d45d-4c56-8d1c-f, Agence française de développement.
  • Handle: RePEc:avg:wpaper:en9387
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2011. "Vietnam Urbanization Review : Technical Assistance Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 2826, The World Bank Group.
    2. World Bank, 2012. "Well Begun, Not Yet Done : Vietnam's Remarkable Progress on Poverty Reduction and the Emerging Challenges," World Bank Publications - Reports 12326, The World Bank Group.
    3. Kim, Annette Miae, 2008. "Learning to be Capitalists: Entrepreneurs in Vietnam's Transition Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195369397.
    4. Minh Do, Tien & Sharma, Deepak, 2011. "Vietnam's energy sector: A review of current energy policies and strategies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5770-5777, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vietnam;

    JEL classification:

    • Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics

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