Private Inter-household Transfers in Vietnam in the Early and Late 1990s

Donald Cox ()

No 524, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: This chapter uses data from the 1992/93 and 1997/98 Vietnam Living Standards Surveys (VLSS) to describe patterns of money transfers between households. Rapid economic growth during the 1990's did little to diminish the importance of private transfers in Vietnam. Private transfers are large and widespread in both surveys,and they are much larger than public transfers are. Private transfers appear to function like means-tested public transfers, flowing from better off to worse off households and providing old-age support in retirement. Panel evidence suggests some hysteresis in private transfer patterns, but many households also changed from recipients to givers and vice versa between surveys. Changes in private transfers appear responsive to changes in household pre- transfer income, demographic changes and life-course events. Transfer inflows rise upon retirement and widowhood, for example, and are positively associated with increases in health expenditures. It also appears that private transfer inflows increased for households affected by Typhoon Linda, which devastated Vietnam's southernmost provinces in late 1997.

Keywords: Private transfers; public transfers; income redistribution; altruism; risk sharing; social safety nets; economic transition; economic growth; Vietnam. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D64 H23 H42 I38 O12 O15 O16 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-02-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Private inter-household transfers in Vietnam in the early and late 1990s (2002)
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