The Historical State, Local Collective Action, and Economic Development in Vietnam

Melissa Dell, Nathaniel Lane and Pablo Querubin

No 23208, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This study examines how the historical state conditions long-run development, using Vietnam as a laboratory. Northern Vietnam (Dai Viet) was ruled by a strong centralized state in which the village was the fundamental administrative unit. Southern Vietnam was a peripheral tributary of the Khmer (Cambodian) Empire, which followed a patron-client model with weaker, more personalized power relations and no village intermediation. Using a regression discontinuity design across the Dai Viet-Khmer boundary, the study shows that areas historically under a strong state have higher living standards today and better economic outcomes over the past 150 years. Rich historical data document that in villages with a strong historical state, citizens have been better able to organize for public goods and redistribution through civil society and local government. This suggests that the strong historical state crowded in village-level collective action and that these norms persisted long after the original state disappeared.

JEL-codes: N15 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-sea, nep-soc and nep-ure
Note: DAE DEV POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published as Melissa Dell & Nathan Lane & Pablo Querubin, 2018. "The Historical State, Local Collective Action, and Economic Development in Vietnam," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 2083-2121, November.

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