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Productivity Effects of Viet Nam's Rice Land Restrictions

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Warr

    (Australian National University, Canberra, Australia)

  • Huy Quynh Nguyen

    (Hanoi School of Business and Management, Viet Nam National University, Hanoi, Viet Nam)

Abstract

Viet Nam's 1986 programme of market-oriented economic reforms did not include the freedom of farmers to choose their crops independently. Large areas of land remain restricted to rice production. This paper studies the effects of this policy on agricultural productivity, using panel data from the Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS), covering the years 2008 to 2016. The econometrics uses fixed effects methods with and without the additional use of instrumental variable methods to allow for the possible statistical endogeneity of the restrictions. The findings are that the crop choice restrictions reduced the overall productivity of annual crop land by about 5%, reduced the overall productivity of farm labour by about 8% and reduced the mean incomes of farm households by 5%-6%, implying increased levels of rural poverty. Moreover, rice output would have been no lower if the restrictions were removed

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Warr & Huy Quynh Nguyen, 2023. "Productivity Effects of Viet Nam's Rice Land Restrictions," Working Papers DP-2022-43, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
  • Handle: RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2022-43
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    land restrictions; productivity; rice production; land policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling

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