Many studies have been conducted to estimate effects of rural credit programs on household income in both Vietnam and foreign coutries. Some provided positive evidence of such programs’ efficiency while others suggest that not all credit programs improved household income. Responding to the question of whether formal credit affects household income will contribute to directions determined to adjust allocation of resources for agriculture and rural development. In addition to the use of Difference-in-Differences (DD) method in connection with pooled OLS regression, this paper employs panel data from Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) in the years 2006–2012, and finds that the formal credit does have effects on the rural household income. Additionally, the paper offers three groups of policies for promoting the role and improving efficiency of the formal credit programs on the household income in rural Vietnam.

This study aims to assess the factors affecting the incentives for financial risk management in Vietnamese enterprises. By employing multivariable binary logistic regression, the author examines the relationship between hedging decisions for firms’ financial risks and their determinants, namely financial distress costs, tax, agency cost of debt, capital-market imperfections and growth opportunity, hedge substitutes, level of managerial utility, level of government influence, and size of firms. The results demonstrate that hedging decisions for financial risks have a positive correlation with costs of financial distress and managerial utility, and a negative correlation with government influence. These findings are agreeable to empirical results of previous researches that work out on the same case.

<b>This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number II4.5-2012.09</b><br> In the last decades scientists around the world have come to a consensus that the survival of humanity is threatened by rising climate changes if people continue to consume and produce in the same way as it has been. According to different analyses including those commissioned by the World Bank, Vietnam is among the countries to be heavily impacted by a rise in sea level caused by the melt of Northern and Southern ice caps. Therefore, as a member of the global community, the Vietnamese government and people must also share the responsibility to address the problem of climate change and act accordingly. Recycling to reduce landfill development, saving energy and water consumption, and curtailing CO2 emission are examples of behavior attributable to the alleviation of environmental degradation. This current study, funded by NAFOSTED, aims at exploring impacts of consumers’ attitude on their household recycling behavior. The study contributes to the existing general discussion about possible attitude-behavior relationship by exploiting structural equation modeling (SEM) with data from the two major cities in Southern Vietnam. This method allows for an examination of multiple complex relations among various factors, mediators, and the dependent variable. This current research study, in addition, is among few ones that take on this approach, especially in the Vietnamese context. Among important findings, a person’s attitude toward recycling may affect his or her reported recycling behavior. Social norm has also been found to influence recycling behavior indirectly via recycling attitude. Therefore, city governments may consider investing more in public policies that nurture and cultivate the favorable attitude toward recycling behavior.

Applying OLS approach, the paper aims at identifying specific banking factors which impact on credit risk of Vietnam’s comercial banks. Using data collected from financial statements of 32 Vietnam’s commercial banks in the years 2010–2013 and the application of OLS, three idendified factors comprise loan growth, size, and cost-income-ratio. Based on the research findings, several recommendations are proposed for individual investors, further contributing to prompt awareness of the factors with negative effects on credit risk and proper control of lending boom impacts.

In this paper we examine whether a positive relationship exists between board’s gender diversity and financial firm’s performance. The study is conducted on a sample of US firms which provides us with as many as possible observations for various econometric techniques. Findings from our two-stage least squares estimation using the fraction of male directors on at least two boards as an instrumental variable show that higher proportions of female directors adversely affect firm value. We further test whether board diversity improves the performance of firms with otherwise weak governance. However, the results are not statistically significant. We also extend our model to the committee level, and our results show that increased representation of women in Audit and Nomination committees are likely to deteriorate the performance of the company as measured using Tobin’s q. The implication for Vietnam is that while a representation of female directors in a board of directors may improve firm’s performance as findings from Vo and Phan (2013) indicate, increasing a number of female directors may not be the case to improve financial firm’s performance.

This paper employs CAMELS rating system to evaluate the performance and soundness of Vietnam’s commercial banks. Based on the analysis of data from financial statements of the banks in the years 2005/2008–2013, the research results show that the total assets and equity capital of Vietnam’s commercial banks have increased, but their efficiency is not yet high and tends to gradually decrease. The expense-to-revenue ratio was higher than 80% while the return on assets (ROA) ratio remained around 1% and had a tendency to sharply fall to 0.77% and 0.56% in 2012 and 2013 respectively. The return on equity (ROE) ratio, in addition, fell steadily in 2012 (7.42%) and 2013 (5.84%). The findings also indicate that profitability of state-owned commercial banks is higher than that of private joint-stock ones. Additionally, risk degree was high because of a high bad debt (around 4%) and low liquidity (around 90% of loan-to-deposit ratio). In addition to its analysis, the research offers sevaral recommendations that aim at improving banking efficiency and mitigating risk as for Vietnam’s commercial banks.

Vietnam’s taxation system has undergone fundamental reforms since the 1990s. Tax reform program of the 2000–2010 period was conducted successfully, putting in place a tax system appropriate to the market economy and necessary legal conditions for accession to the World Trade Organization and international integration. After over 20 years of tax reform, taxation capacity has been improved; raising tax revenue is comparable to economic and structural potentials of tax system. The Vietnamese Prime Minister ratified a tax system reform strategy for 2010–2020 with ambitious target of tax revenue at 23–24% of GDP. The present study finds that raising tax revenue size is of no benefit to economic growth. Therefore, by 2020, Vietnam will have overcome several challenges in the process of tax reform such as broadening the tax base, simplifying the tax administration according to international standards, and harmonizing tax system grounds between ASEAN members.

The paper presents research on restructuring of Vietnam's system of commercial banks by implementing a three-stage DEA/SFA approach to estimate of impact of the restructuring process on banking efficiency. The empirical findings show that rises and falls in banking efficiency are irregular because the restructuring process has not completed and that some banks gain higher efficiency scores while others, especially those affected by low performance of merged banks, witness sharp falls.