District Competitiveness Index 2015 - Lao Cai province

My presentation at the Launching Ceremony of Lao Cai's 2015 District Competitiveness Index.

Economics in everyday life

Economics In Everyday LIfe from MrRed

Saturday's Music: Can't Help Falling in Love

Elvis Presley's official audio for "Can't help falling in love". Enjoy!

A handbook for business associations in Vietnam

Hi! This post is for a brief introduction of a new book which I jointly engaged in writing.

Book title: A journey toward linkage: Best practices of Vietnamese Business Associations and Self-assessment tool (in Vietnamese: Hành trình hướng tới sự liên kết: Thực tiễn tốt trong hoạt động và công cụ đánh giá năng lực hoạt động của hiệp hội doanh nghiệp Việt Nam)

You can view/download it through the link below. The ebook is available in both English and Vietnamese version.

Link download (pdf): English, Vietnamese

The report “A journey toward linkage: Best practices of Vietnamese Business Associations and Self-assessment tool” has been conducted in the framework of “Effective business association for dynamic and comprehensive development in Vietnam” Program run by The Asia Foundation (TAF) and funded by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia (DFAT). The program aims at competence raising for business associations in Vietnam for better serving of its members, and as such enhancing participation of these stakeholders in development of policy and legal system toward dynamic and comprehensive development in Vietnam.

The report consists of two main parts. Part I “Good practice of Business Associations Activities” provides analysis and summary of good practice by Vietnamese business associations. Part II “Proposal of Self-assessment Toolkit for Business Associations” delivers a simple set of indicators for business assocciations to self-assess their capacities.

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As a member of this project team, I joined 2 field trips to conduct interviews with Vietnamese business associations and then was responsible for writing up four main sections of the report. The value of the report has been appreciated by many associations recently. That's a very good news for our team!

I am really gratifying to know that my team's efforts have been affecting the development of Vietnamese business associations in such a positve way. :)

International Trade reading list

Below is the reading list to learn about international trade. This list is introduced by Tyler Cowen, an economist, who is running the Marginal Revolution blog. I show here all of his post for reading.

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Books: Jacob Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (on-line, optional).

All videos can be found on MRUniversity.com, if not in the international trade section than in the development economics class or a few on Mexico in the Mexico class.  In general I recommend viewing the videos before tackling the readings.

I. Comparative advantage and free trade

1. Bernhofen, Daniel and John C. Brown. 2005. “An Empirical Assessment of the Comparative Advantage Gains from Trade: Evidence from Japan.” American Economic Review.
2. Autor, David H. David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson. Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labour Markets. The Economic journal, 2015, 125 (584), p. 621 – 646.
3. Acemoglu, Daron, David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson. 2014. “Import Competition and the Great US Employment Sag of the 2000s.” NBER Working Paper.
4. Feenstra, Robert C. 2008. “Offshoring in the Global Economy.” Ohlin Lecture Series, Lecture 1 only, through p.66 only.
5. Grossman, Gene M. and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg. 2006. “The Rise of Offshoring: It’s Not Wine for Cloth Anymore.” Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
6. Donaldson, David. 2011. “Trade and Labor Markets.” powerpoint.
7. Khandelwal, Amit. 2009. “The Long and Short (of) Quality Ladders.” Review of Economic Studies.
8. Baldwin, Richard. 2011. “How Trade and Industrial Organization After Globalization’s 2^nd Unblundling: How Building and Joining a Supply Chain are Different and Why it Matters.” NBER Working Paper. Also this is a chapter in the NBER book Globalization in an Age of Crisis: Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century (2014), Robert C. Feenstra and Alan M. Taylor, editors, pp. 165–212.
9. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou and Nina Pavcnik. 2007. “Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries.” Journal of Economic Literature.
10. Tyler Cowen, “Why the theory of comparative advantage is overrated,” Marginal Revolution blog post, http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/09/why-the-theory-of-comparative-advantage-is-overrated.html
11.  
12. Videos: The two videos on Comparative Advantage, Sources of Comparative Advantage, Development and Trade, empirical evidence, Evidence on Comparative Advantage from Japan, Factor price equalization, Specific Factors Models, Economics of Offshoring, The Rybczynski Theorem, Trade, Investment, and Migration as Substitutes, Unbundling the Supply Chain.

II. Tariffs

1. Paul Krugman. “The One-Minute Trade Policy Theorist.” (powerpoint)
2. The Economic Benefits of U.S. trade, Office of the President of the United States, May 2015.
3. Broda, Christian, Nuno Limao, and David Weinstein. 2008. “Optimal Tariffs and Market Power: The Evidence.” American Economic Review.
4. Arkolakis, Costas, Arnaud Costinot and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2012. “New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?” American Economic Review.
5. Melitz, Marc J. “The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity,” Econometrica 2003.
6. Kehoe, Timothy J. and Kim J. Ruhl. 2006. “How Important Is the New Goods Margin in International Trade?” NBER Working Paper, and now just published, Journal of Political Economy 2013.
7. Bernhofen, Daniel M., Zouheir El-Sahli, and Richard Kneller. 2012. “Estimating the Effects of the Container Revolution on World Trade.” University of Nottingham Discussion Paper Series.
8. Nunn, Nathan and Daniel Trefler. 2010. “The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth.” American Economic Review.
9. Dave Donaldson, “Trade and Growth (Empirics)”, MIT Lectures notes.
10.  
11. Videos: Tariffs v. Quotas, International Trade Disciplines Monopolies, Monopolistic Competition and International Trade, Effective rate of protection, Theory of Optimal Tariffs, Trade and Variety, Does “fair trade” help?, Malawi restrict trade in corn, Market reforms in Bangladesh, John Stuart Mill Terms of trade, The Shipping Container.

III. Heckscher-Ohlin and factor abundance theories of trade

1. Helpman, Elhanan. 1999. “The Structure of Foreign Trade.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
2. Debaere, Peter. 2003. “Factor Abundance and Trade.” Journal of Political Economy.
3. Deardorff, Alan V. 1979. “Weak Links in the Chain of Comparative Advantage.” Journal of International Economics.
4. Trefler, Daniel. 1993. “International Factor Price Differences: Leontief Was Right!” Journal of Political Economy.
5. Davis, Donald R. and David E. Weinstein. 2001. “What Role for International Trade.” NBER Working Paper.
6. Davis, Donald R. 1995. “Intra-Industry Trade: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Ricardo Approach.” Journal of International Economics.
7. Trefler, Daniel. 1995. “The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries.” American Economic Review.
8. Costino, Arnaud and Jonathan Vogel. “Beyond Ricardo: Assignment Models in International Trade,” NBER Working Paper, October 2014.
9. Videos: What is at Stake in Trade Theories?, The Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem, Evidence on the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem.

IV. Increasing Returns

1. Donaldson, David. “Increasing Returns to Scale and Monopolistic Trade.” Powerpoint, on-line, http://economics.mit.edu/files/7444
2. Helpman, Elhanan. 1987. “Imperfect Competition and International Trade: Evidence from Fourteen Industrial Countries.” Journal of the Japanese and International Economics.
3. Davis, Donald R. and David E. Weinstein. 2003. “Market Access, Economic Geography, and Comparative Advantage: An Empirical Test.” Journal of International Economics.
4. Antweiler, Werner ; Trefler, Daniel.  Increasing Returns and All That: A View from Trade, American Economic Review, 1 March 2002, Vol.92(1), pp.93-119.
5. Debaere, Peter. 2005. “Monopolistic Competition and Trade, Revisited: Testing the Model Without Testing for Gravity.” Journal of International Economics.
6. Yi, Kei-Mu. 2003. “Can Vertical Specialization Explain the Growth of World Trade?” Journal of Political Economy.
7. Harrigan, James. 2001. “Specialization and the Volume of Trade: Do the Data Obey the Laws?” NBER Working Paper.
8. Bernard, Andrew B. ; Jensen, J. Bradford ; Redding, Stephen J. ;Schott, Peter K. “Firms in International Trade,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1 July 2007, Vol.21(3), pp.105-130.
9. Helpman, Elhanan.  Foreign Trade and Investment: Firm‐level Perspectives,” Economica, 2014, Vol.81(321), pp.1-14.
10. Tybout, James R. 2001. “Plant- and Firm-Level Evidence on “New” Trade Theories.” NBER Working Paper.
11. Bernard, Andrew B. and J. Bradford Jensen. 2004. “Why Some Firms Export.” Review of Economics and Statistics.
12. Baldwin, Richard ; Harrigan, James.  Zeros, Quality, and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence,” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1 May 2011, Vol.3(2), pp.60-88.
13. Armenter, Roc and Koren, Miklos. “A Balls-and-Bins Model of Trade.” American Economic Review, 2014, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.104.7.2127.
14. Videos: Trade and External Economies of Scale, Monopolistic Competition and International Trade, Trade and Increasing Returns: Evidence, Paul Romer, Robert Torrens on strategic trade policy, The Economics of Bollywood.

V. Is there a trade and industrialization slowdown?

1. Hausmann, Ricardo, Jason Hwang, and Dani Rodrik. “What You Export Matters.” Journal of Economic Growth, 12, 1, March 2007, 1-25.
2. Rodrik, Dani. “The Future of Economic Convergence.” Harvard Kennedy School, August 2011, RWP11-033.
3. Rodrik, Dani. “Unconditional Convergence in Manufacturing.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012.
4. Rodrik, Dani. “The Perils of Premature Deindustrialization.” Project Syndicate, 11 October 2013.
5. Rodrik, Dani. “Are Services the New Manufactures?” Project Syndicate, October 13, 2014.
6. Davies, Gavyn. “Why world trade growth has lost its mojo.” The Financial Times, January 9, 2015.

VI. Gravity models

1. Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop.  2004. “Trade Costs” Journal of Economic Literature.
2. Head, Keith. 2011. “Gravity for Beginners.” Presented at US-Canada Border Conference.
3. Donaldson, David. 2011. “Gravity Models.” No Journal—powerpoint.
4. Hummels, David. 2007. “Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
5. Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop. 2003. “Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle.” American Economic Review.
6. Eaton, Jonathan and Samuel Kortum. 2002. “Technology, Geography, and Trade.” Econometrica.
7. Chaney, Thomas. “The Network Structure of International Trade,” American Economic Review 2014.
8. Video: The Gravity Equation and the Costs of Trade.

VII. Trade in economic history

1. Harrison, Ann and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2010. “Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries.” Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 5, Ch 63, also the same is Ann Harrison and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2009. “Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries.” NBER Working Paper.
2. Irwin, Douglas. 2002. “Interpreting the Tariff-Growth Correlation of the Late Nineteenth Century.” American Economic Review.
3. Irwin, Douglas. 2002. “Did Import Substitution Promote Growth in the Late Nineteenth Century?” NBER Working Paper.
4. John Nye, “The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France,” Journal of Economic History, 1991.
5. Irwin, Douglas. 1997. “From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930s.” NBER Working Paper.
6. Irwin, Douglas. 1998. “The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment.” The Review of Economic Statistics.
7. Crowley, Meredith A. and Xi Luo. 2011. “Understanding the Great Trade Collapse of 2008-09 and the Subsequent Trade Recovery.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
8. Francois, Joseph and Julia Woerz. 2009. “The Big Drop: Trade and the Great Recession.” No Journal, article online.
9. Videos: Corn Law debates, Friedrich List, Robert Torrens on sliding tariffs, The Deindustrialization of India, Tariffs and Growth in the late 19^thCentury, South Korea and Industrial Policy, The Smoot-Hawley Tariff, Why Did Trade Plummet in the Great Recession?

VIII. FDI and multinationals

1. Blonigen, Bruce.  A Review of the Empirical Literature on FDI Determinants, Atlantic Economic Journal, 2005, 33, 4, pp.383-403
2. Ramondo, Natalia and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2013. “Trade, Multinational Production, and the Gains from Openness.” Journal of Political Economy, 2013, vol. 121, no. 2.
3. Antras, Pol and Stephen R. Yeaple. 2013. “Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade.” NBER Working Paper, it is also Pol Antras and Stephen Yeaple, “Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade,” 2013, Handbook of International Economics,Volume 4, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-54314-1.00002-1
4. Cole, Harold L., Jeremy Greenwood, and Juan M. Sanchez. “Why Doesn’t Technology Flow From Rich to Poor Countries?” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, 20856, January 2015.
5. Videos: Basics of multinational corporations, Intra-firm Trade, Intra-industry Trade, Gains from Multinationals, Who Gains from FDI?, Productivity in firms, Foreign investment in India, Competition from foreign retailers, What is a Maquiladora? Introduction to NAFTA, NAFTA and Mexican Agriculture, The Effect of NAFTA on the Mexican Economy.

IX. The politics of trade

1. Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1994. “Protection for Sale.” American Economic Review.
2. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou and Giovanni Maggi. 1999. “Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review.
3. Mayda, Anna Maria and Dani Rodrik. 2005. “What are Some People (and Countries) More Protectionist than Others?” European Economic Review.
4. Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1995. “The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements.” American Economic Review.
5. Harrison, Ann and Jason Scorse. 2010. “Multinational and Anti-Sweatshop Activism.” American Economic Review.
6.  Videos: The Political Economy of Tariffs, Does Trade Help the Environment?, Regulation as a Major Trade Barrier, Who Supports Free Trade?, The Cultural Diversity Critique of Markets.

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Enjoy!

ESL Handbook for student

I have just found a helpful website of the University of Washington (link here) with very good resources for ESL students like me.

The resources (the ESL Handbook written by Young-Kyung Min) are designed to provide practical guidelines and strategies to help students be successful in their academic endeavors.

Here are the main contents you can enjoy reading:

• Academic Integrity & Plagiarism (Tính liêm chính học thuật và vấn nạn đạo văn)
• Brainstorming Strategies (Chiến lược thực hành brainstorming)
• Coherence and Cohesion (Làm thế nào để bài writing rõ ràng, logic, dễ hiểu, mạch lạc)
• Dropped Quotation (Trích dẫn)
• Email Communication (Giao tiếp bằng email)
• Hedging, Qualifying Your Claim (Điều chỉnh, giới hạn, trau chuốt những nhận định)
• Parallelism (cách viết theo kiểu sóng đôi, song hành)
• Reading Strategies (Chiến lược reading)
• Research Papers (Viết bài nghiên cứu ra sao?)
• Revision Strategies (Rà soát, kiểm tra như thế nào)
• Source use & Synthesis skills (Tổng hợp thông tin và diễn giải)
• Speaking (Kỹ năng nói)
• Thesis Statements (Xây dựng main argument cho công trình nghiên cứu)
• Vocabulary Building (Phát triển từ vựng) 
• The Writing Process (Quá trình để thực hành viết)

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Bonus: My photo with friendly classmates last week:

 

 

Chỉ số cấp phép xây dựng của Việt Nam - Doing Business 2015

Doing Business 2015 - Dealing with construction permits in Vietnam, below is my presentation: