Tax is the main revenue of Government, so fighting tax evasion and sustainable growth have been the primary macroeconomic goals being pursued by every developing country, Vietnam included. The existence and development of the shadow economic sector are synonymous with the national budget losing out. In Vietnam, foreign direct investment projects do not promote economic growth and is also a sector that gives way to tax evasion.The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment, the quality of the informal institution on the size of the shadow economy in Vietnam, during the period 1991-2015. By applying the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach and Toda and Yamamoto test, we found evidence to conclude that the quality of the informal institution harms the size of the shadow economy. The results of the causality test show that there is a unidirectional causality running from the shadow economy and the quality of the informal institution to foreign direct investment attraction in Vietnam. Political solutions need to be implemented carefully to counter the harmful effects of the shadow economy. Policymakers should adopt several economic policies to improve the ‘human capital’ and drive the shadow economy into the formal economy.

Low inflation and sustainable growth have been the major macroeconomic goals being pursued by every developing country, Vietnam inclusive. The effect of inflation on economic growth has been intensively analyzed by a variety of studies, but the empirical evidence more often than not remains controversial and ambiguous. One common hypothesis of previous studies is that they have assumed that the effect of inflation on growth is symmetric. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the asymmetric effect of inflation and money supply on economic growth using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach introduced by Shin, Byungchul, and Greenwood-nimmo (2013) for Vietnam over the period 1990-2017. Empirical results provide evidence that the effects of inflation on economic growth are negative and asymmetric in the long run. The impact of money supply on growth is positive in both the short-run and long-run. Accordingly, the impact of the increase in the inflation rate is bigger than the decreasing in the long-run. This different impact is significant and high inflation will destruct economic activities. As a result, the study provides empirical evidence for the authorities to plan monetary policies and control the rate of inflation to achieve sustainable economic development in the long-run.

Energy and energy consumption play an important role in strategies for socio-economic development of the country. In 1995, Vietnam officially entered the 500 kV North-South transmission power line exploits, with a full length of 1,487 km. The purpose of this study is to investigate the breakpoint and the transition effect of energy consumption to economic growth in Vietnam during the period of 1980-1994, and 1995-2016. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach and the Bounds test are used to test for the presence of cointegration, whereas the Toda and Yamamoto procedure Granger causality test is used for the direction of causality. The result of the Bounds test validates the existence of cointegration among the included variables. The empirical results provide evidence that energy consumption has a positive impact on the economic growth of Vietnam in the long run. The causality test shows that there is bi-directional causality between energy consumption and economic growth, supported feedback hypothesis. There is a breakpoint in 1995 and the contribution of energy consumption in economic growth in the period of 1995-2016 is lower than the stage 1980-1994. This study suggests Government authorities explore new sources of energy to achieve sustainable economic development in the long run.

The study aims to investigate the determinant factors in the organisation of a firm’s innovative activities, and the impact of innovation capability on firm’s performance of electronic firms in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. How is the performance of electronic companies after delivering an innovation project? How will innovation capability affect firm’s performance in electronic companies? This study aims to seek the answer of these questions. We employ a Structural Equation Model and the PLS technique in order to validate the theoretical model proposed in this study. With observation of 374 valid firms, based on Cronbach’s Alpha analysis, EFA analysis, CFA analysis and SEM analysis, this study discovers 5 groups of factors including: (i) Institution factors; (ii) Attitude of leadership factors; (iii) Marketing factors; (iv) Technological resources factors; (v) Combination factors, which have direct impact on innovation capability of firms. There are 4 groups of factors that have positive impacts on financial performance of electronic firms, with descending order of importance as follows: (1) Attitude of leadership factors; (2) Quality of human resources factors; (3) Innovation capability; (4) Marketing activities factors. Research results are important implications for Government administrative agencies for business to consult and introduce effective support policies.

The paper aims to investigate whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has positive effect on the labour productivity in Vietnam. Labour productivity is the elemental determinant of a country’s development level in long-term. In recent years, although increasing consistently, labour productivity of Vietnam remains low in comparison to other South East Asian countries. To identify the direction of effect and the level of effect of FDI and human capital on the labour productivity of Vietnam, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was used to examine the effect of FDI and human capital on labour productivity in Vietnam from 1986 to 2014. The results of bounds test confirm the existence of cointegration among the variables. Further, the Toda and Yamamoto Granger causality test affirms that there is unidirectional causality running from foreign direct investment and human capital index to labour productivity. The empirical results provide strong statistical evidence that foreign direct investment and human capital has a positive impact on labour productivity in Vietnam in long-term. These findings imply that workers are expected to further improve their knowledge, skills and that policy-maker should establish concrete plans to increase human capital. Results from this study provide suggestion necessary for Vietnam to achieve sustainable development.