This dissertation examines dynamics of poverty, growth and inequality, with a specific
focus on labor mobility. While a recurring point in discussions on development is if the main
focus of development plans should be placed on growth, or poverty, and/or on inequality,
one-country studies comprehensively investigating these issues are still scarce. Thus, this
dissertation fills this gap in the literature by taking Vietnam as a case study, as Vietnam has
achieved higher inclusive economic growth with significant poverty reduction over the past
three decades.
Chapter 2 decomposes dynamic welfare change into growth effect (GE: change in the
mode of expenditure of the population) and distribution effect (DE: change in the shape of
distribution) from a macro perspective. Decompositions are applied to the distributional change
of aggregated expenditure of the bottom 40 percent into GE and DE. Conventional discussions
have almost always concluded that economic growth is good for the poor, but have discussed
less the contribution of GE in the comparison to DE. Aggregated expenditure is approximated
by logarithm normal (lognormal) distribution to calculate rigorous probability functions using
VLSS/VHLSS during the period of 1993-2014. The two types of decompositions are conducted
based on the lines in each decile of the bottom 40 percent by area in each survey year. The
results suggest that the increase in expenditure has been largely induced by GE. Those who
situated in lower quantiles are more elastic to GE and lesser elastic to DE. Inequality, measured
by DE, negatively affects the living standards of the bottom 10 and 20 percent according to the
area and year, but the magnitude is not great (sufficiently offset by GE). Consistent trends of
GE and DE over the time period were not observed. These results support prioritizing
growth-enhancing policies for rapid poverty reduction while reinforcing a time-consuming
redistribution system.