Why Doesnʼt Vietnam Grow Faster?: State Fragmentation and the Limits of Vent for Surplus Growth
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:K\'RHVQW9LHWQDP*URZ)DVWHU"6WDWH)UDJPHQWDWLRQ DQGWKH/LPLWVRI9HQWIRU6XUSOXV*URZWK -RQDWKDQ3LQFXV Journal of Southeast Asian Economies (JSEAE), Volume 32, Number 1, April 2015, pp. 26-51 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\,QVWLWXWHRI6RXWKHDVW$VLDQ6WXGLHV For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ase/summary/v032/32.1.pincus.html Access provided by German Institute of Global and Area Studies GIGA (4 Jun 2015 14:31 GMT) Journal of Southeast Asian Economies Vol. 32, No. 1 (2015), pp. 26–51 ISSN 2339-5095 print / ISSN 2339-5206 electronic DOI: 10.1355/ae32-1c Why Doesn’t Vietnam Grow Faster? State Fragmentation and the Limits of Vent for Surplus Growth Jonathan Pincus Although Vietnam has achieved exceptionally rapid growth of exports, “vent-for-surplus” production of agricultural commodities and labour-intensive manufactures has yet to stimulate the development of large-scale, technologically progressive firms. Foreign-invested and small domestic enterprises still dominate and rely heavily on imports of intermediate and capital goods. The absence of upstream and downstream industries can be explained at least in part by Vietnam’s unique transition from central planning. The state has not receded from economic life as much as reconfigure itself to benefit from market opportunities. Commercialization of the state has aggravated the long-standing problem of fragmentation, which has blocked government efforts to impose discipline on state agencies and enforce central government plans and regulations. Keywords: Vietnam, economic growth, economic transition, productivity, Nicholas Kaldor, Hla Myint. 1. Introduction Indonesia had its turn as the donors’ favourite developing country in the latter half of the 1980s, Economists should learn to be wary of telling development success stories. Today’s economic when the Suharto government responded to the fall miracles reappear as tomorrow’s underperformers in global oil prices with market-friendly policies with depressing regularity, not least for those of that by 1993 had earned the country inclusion us who study the economies of Southeast Asia. In among the East Asian miracle countries of the the 1950s the Philippines was one of the richest World Bank’s eponymous study (World Bank countries in Asia and was widely seen as the 1993). Alas, the collapse of 1997 was just around region’s rising star, an economy with far greater the corner. potential than that notorious “bottomless pit” of Now it appears to be Vietnam’s turn. From American aid, South Korea (Woo 1991, p. 46). “one of the most successful cases in economic Jonathan Pincus is President of the Rajawali Foundation, Menara Rajawali, Kawasan Mega Kuningan, Jakarta 12950, Indonesia, and senior advisor to the Centre for Public Policy Transformation, Jakarta; email: Jonathan. [email protected] 26 © 2015 JSEAE 15-00596 03.indd 26 4/6/15 10:39 AM April 2015 Pincus: Why Doesn’t Vietnam Grow Faster? 27 development in recent times”, or as one World provides a deeper explanation. Kaldor finds at least Bank mission chief put it rather inelegantly, the three reasons for the positive relationship between “poster child” for economic reform, Vietnam the rate of growth of manufacturing output and is now “A Tiger Tamed” (The Economist, labour productivity growth. First, the presence of 2 February 2013) that “faces a risk of a prolonged surplus labour in the rural sector means that labour period of slow growth” (World Bank 2013a, can be redeployed from agriculture to higher p. 15). The optimism — bordering on euphoria productivity industrial jobs without decreasing — surrounding Vietnam’s accession to the World agricultural output. Second, manufacturing is Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007 has drowned uniquely capable of delivering economies of in a sea of bad debt, falling asset prices and scale through specialization and technological corporate collapse. learning. Finally, rapid growth of output stimulates However dramatic these shifting fortunes may the development of downstream industries that appear on the surface, it is important to keep them process manufactured goods (for example, sewing in perspective. Talk of the “middle-income trap” cloth into garments) and upstream industries that is all the rage among donor agencies and some produce capital goods (the production of textile academic observers of Vietnam (Ohno 2009) machinery).1 Concentrating on the demand side, as it is for the region as a whole (OECD 2013). he sees rapid output growth as a stimulus to large- Countries are said to fall into the trap when they scale investment and technological learning. have exhausted labour-intensive growth but are Hla Myint uses the term “vent for surplus” to unable to move into more technologically and describe the mobilization of underutilized land managerially demanding industries (Eichengreen, and labour for export production, a process that he Park and Shin 2013). As building institutions and views as pivotal to Southeast Asian development education systems can take decades, countries can (Hla Myint 1972). Myint credits Adam Smith find themselves priced out of low-tech exports for with the insight that the demand contributed by many years before they can penetrate markets for exports promotes specialization, the division of higher value-added goods. This scenario is not one labour and the realization of scale economies. As that has immediate relevance to Southeast Asia. in Verdoorn’s Law, vent for surplus jettisons the As shown in Figure 1, since 1960 none of the large neoclassical assumption of full employment and countries in the region has endured a long period emphasizes the relationship between the aggregate of less than 2 per cent growth of GDP per annum. demand and productivity growth. Southeast Even the Philippines, the worst performer among Asian economies have specialized in the export these countries, posted low growth rates in only of agricultural commodities like rubber and palm seven of the last fifty-three years, and only once oil, adopting and developing new technologies, for three years in succession. rationalizing management and reaping economies What sets the Philippines apart is not the time of scale. Foreign demand for manufactured goods that it has spent in a slow growth trap but instead such as garments and shoes, and later electronic the comparatively few years in which the economy components and automobile parts, has stimulated grew at extremely rapid rates of 8 per cent or more. the development of these industries. Singapore, at the other end of the spectrum, has Vietnam is an even a less likely candidate for had its share of bad years, but it has also posted the middle-income trap than the Philippines: the growth rates of more than 10 per cent in seventeen economy has expanded at an average of nearly 7 of the last fifty years. At its most basic level the per cent since 1988, and the growth rate dropped transformative power of double-digit growth is below 5 per cent in only one year during this period. reflected in the arithmetic fact that an economy Still predominantly rural, Vietnam’s transition growing at 10 per cent per annum will double in from an agrarian to an industrial economy has size every seven years. Nicholas Kaldor’s second only just begun. However, like the Philippines, law of growth, generally known as Verdoorn’s Law, Vietnam has not achieved many years of very high 15-00596 03.indd 27 4/6/15 10:39 AM 15-00596 03.indd 28 28 FIGURE 1 Economic Growth in Southeast Asia 60 Journal of Southeast Asian Economies Journal ofSoutheast 50 2 13 14 15 40 17 28 30 17 11 22 6 20 30 6 16 15 19 12 10 10 7 7 5 6 7 - 4- Philippines Indonesia Thailand Malaysia Vietnam Singapore 4.2% 5.7% 6.1% 6.4% 6.4% 7.7% Less than 2% 2-4.9% 5-7.9% 8% and over NOTE: Figure below country names are average growth rates 1961 to 2013 (for Thailand 1966–2013 and Vietnam 1985–2013). SOURCE: World Development Indicators. V ol. 32,No.1 4/6/15 10:39 AM April 2015 Pincus: Why Doesn’t Vietnam Grow Faster? 29 rates of growth, and growth has not exceeded 8 was never a great strength of the system — become per cent since 1997. Economic growth has not even more difficult. Commercialization and returned to the highs recorded in the 1990s despite fragmentation of the state discouraged investment average growth of non-oil exports of 16 per cent in large-scale, technologically and managerially per year. Even as non-oil exports accelerated after demanding investment projects. State and state- 2004, labour productivity growth has yet to regain linked companies have instead favoured activities the highs recorded during the early years of reform in property development and finance that generate (Table 1). short-term rents on the basis of preferential Why has robust demand for Vietnam’s exports access to state-controlled land, capital or not generated more rapid growth of labour licences. An important policy implication of state productivity? This paper offers an explanation for commercialization is that privatization of state the failure of Vietnamese firms to capitalize on companies may have the unintended consequence export growth to develop backward and forward of increasing rather than reducing the role of the linkages in agriculture and manufacturing. Despite state in the Vietnamese economy. successful vent for surplus growth, Vietnam has run large and persistent trade deficits, and in particular 2. Vent for Surplus widening deficits with China, and depends heavily on China for inputs into its export industries. Vietnam enjoyed two decades of rapid growth Vietnam’s domestic firms — largely contained following the adoption of Doi Moi or “economic within or closely linked to the state sector — have renovation” announced in December 1986 and remained small, uncompetitive and dependent implemented in stages over the next ten to fifteen upon state support.