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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current situation of buying external technology in Vietnamese manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from 2013 to 2018. This paper also aims to examine the effect of buying technology on employment and environmental quality in Vietnam.

External technology purchase and its impact on employment and environmental quality are taken from the Vietnam annual enterprise survey and the using technology in production survey from 2013 to 2018. The estimation is based on a feasible generalized least squares method.

This study finds that external technology purchase in manufacturing SMEs increases the employment rate in the industries. External technology purchase in Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs also increases the level of environmental pollution. This is a negative side of purchasing technology for production because if the technology used is old, outdated and of poor quality, it will increase environmental pollution. In addition, the growth in employment increases air pollution. This shows that purchasing advanced technology selectively helps to increase the employment rate in Vietnamese manufacturing sector, which is followed by a positive impact on environmental quality.

The limitation of this study is that the research period was only investigated from 2013 to 2018 because the General Statistics Office of Vietnam no longer surveys the dataset about using technology in production surveys after 2018. This study has been conducted at the firm level, so results cannot be easily extended to the macroeconomic level, also taking into account the data limitations in terms of sector coverage.

This paper provides necessary policy recommendations for the government and manufacturing SMEs to solve negative technology issues related to the labour market and air quality in Vietnam. The results are expected to help policymakers in Vietnam propose appropriate national science and technology programmes towards sustainable development in the coming decades.

This paper focuses on assessing the effects of buying external technology by Vietnamese small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises on employment and air quality.

Purpose: To explore emotional support, daily housework assistance, and economic support for older adults provided by the Vietnamese family within the context of the impacts of socio-economic, demographic, and other factors.

Methodology: (1) The researchers used data from censuses taken from 1989 to 2019; national surveys of Internal Migration, Labor and Employment and other topics; and recent large sample sociological surveys (2) adapted a modified Diamond Care Model (Ochiai, 2009) to analyze effects of the characteristics of older adults; and of the country’s laws, policies, and socio-economic changes, on the families’ caregiving activities supporting the older adults.

Findings: The family is still the most important institution providing care for older adults in Viet Nam. Most older people live with their children and see this as an age-old security solution despite differences related to lifestyles and interests. However, when the average number of working-age people per older person decreases, as older adults live longer, household sizes are smaller, and there is increased large migration, the demand for non-family caregiving for older adults will increase. Since social services to help meet this demand are limited, the traditional family support system for the elderly in Viet Nam will face many challenges as families try to assure the quality of care needed in the very near future.

Value: This chapter shows systematically a relationship between elderly care in the Vietnamese family and socio-economic, demographic, and associated factors based on comprehensive data sources. The results can help us think about how to create an appropriate future model for taking care of older adults in Viet Nam that combines the efforts of families and the support of comprehensive social policies by the community.

This paper aims to provide rigor and clarity to the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) policy debate in Vietnam. It is intended to serve a three-fold purpose. First, it critically examines the framing of policy objectives and the utilization of policy instruments for controlling COVID-19 in Vietnam. Second, it goes beyond policy design to consider the coordination and implementation of COVID-19 policies in Vietnam. Third, it discusses policy measures needed for post-COVID sustainable and inclusive growth, especially the sharing of the public costs of COVID-19 policies.

The paper employs a positivist research framework that emphasizes the causal relationships between the variables under study. The method of analysis is mixed, combining both qualitative and quantitative techniques. In particular, a simple, theoretical model is constructed to evaluate the welfare effects of alternative vaccine strategies. No primary data were collected.

The Vietnamese government’s dual goals of containing the pandemic and maintaining economic growth, while being reasonable, need clarification and updating. It is argued that in the longer term, there is no trade-off between saving lives and protecting the economy. The downward revision of the projected growth rate and commitment to a coherent and transparent vaccination strategy is the best way to move forward in Vietnam. The choice of vaccine rollout order involves a consideration of ethics. It is suggested that it is appropriate to vaccinate elderly people and people with underlying medical conditions first. Complementary policy measures to stimulate aggregate demand and supply need to be expanded but also more targeted. Effective coordination and implementation of COVID-19 policies remain a serious challenge for Vietnam. Finally, inclusive growth and sustainable development should take account of human capital development and distributive justice.

The paper proposes a number of policy measures which have social impact. These include the government's formal commitment to a vaccine first strategy and a relief package of essential goods to poor and disadvantaged households.

The paper contributes positively to the current COVID-19 policy formulation by providing rigor and clarity to the framing of policy objectives and the utilization of policy instruments. While vaccination has been adopted as a national policy instrument, its design and implementation can be much improved. The paper recommends an appropriate vaccine strategy for Vietnam. It also draws attention to other dimensions of successful policies, namely, communication, coordination, implementation and distributive justice.

Internationalization is viewed as an important strategy in the context of a country in transition from central planning to market orientation. Efforts to internationalize universities are being carried out at both national and institutional levels. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no study to investigate how individual institutions approach internationalization and what they gain from that process. This paper aims to investigate the enhancement of teachers’ and students’ knowledge and skills using internationalization in Vietnam universities as a strategy.

Semi-structured interviews with leaders from 12 universities were conducted to investigate their perceptions, strategies and perceived outcomes of the internationalization process of their universities. Data analysis involved coding the transcripts of interviews into themes.

Results show that current approaches to internationalized activities in Vietnamese universities are ad hoc in nature, while resources and language incompetence of staff and students are limited. In line with other previous studies, limited resources and lack of English competence among educators and students were found to be the key obstacles and challenges for internationalized activities. The authors also note an issue that apparently has not been raised elsewhere in the relevant research literature, which is the challenge for the sustainability of knowledge production via research and publications.

Findings from this study not only contribute to Vietnamese universities but also to other developing institutions which do not have strong international exchange programs or have not experienced strong benefits from international exchange programs.

Recognition that not every climate adaptation policy is a good one has shifted attention to new tools and methods to measure the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation policies. This study aims to propose and apply and applies an innovative adaptation policy assessment framework to identify the extent to which climate adaptation policies in Vietnam exhibit conditions that are likely to ensure a sufficient, credible and effective adaptation.

In total, 21 conditions, categorized under five normative principles and covering critical issue areas in adaptation domain, form the climate adaptation policy assessment framework. The principles were double-checked and tested in case studies through observations and analyses of policy documents to ensure that each condition should be distinct and not overlapping across principles. To see if the principles and attendant conditions were able to capture all relevant aspects of adaptation, the authors used structured expert judgment. In total, 39 policy documents pertaining to climate change adaptation were selected for qualitative document analysis. In-depth interviews with local officials and experts were conducted to address data gaps.

The study reveals major weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation policies in Vietnam since several critical conditions were underrepresented. These results shed new light on why some adaptation policies falter or are posing adverse impacts. The findings suggest that a sound policy assessment framework can provide evidence on what effective adaptation policy looks like and how it can be enabled. The framework for climate adaptation policy assessment in this study can be easily adjusted and used for different socio-environmental contexts in which new conditions for policy assessment might emerge.

The findings show underlying weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation regime in Vietnam. In the absence of mechanisms and measures for accountability and transparency in policy processes, adaptation in Vietnam appears more likely to be prone to maladaptation and corruption. While solving these problems will not be easy for Vietnam, the government needs to evaluate whether the short-term gains in sustaining the existing adaptation policies really make progress and serve its long-term climate-adaptive development goals.

Although interpretations of adaptation effectiveness may be very divergent in different normative views on adaptation outcomes, the authors argue that a common, agreed-upon effectiveness can be reached if it is clearly defined and measurable in adaptation policies. Thus, the climate adaptation policy assessment framework proposed in this study is critical for policymakers, practitioners, donors and stakeholders dealing with adaptation to better understand the weaknesses in policymaking processes, pinpoint priority areas of action and timely prevent or prepare for possible adverse impacts of policies.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the way in which a popular ritual became one of Vietnam’s most important festivals, elevated as a celebration of national heroism and charts its gradual transformation in modern society.

This research focuses on the combination of a fertility rite and narratives of St Gióng based on nationalism or heroism created a special festival reflecting many traditional cultural characteristics of Vietnam and the Việt people and the transformation of St Gióng from a mythological to a national symbol of heroism in anti-invader history was recorded in texts.

The paper casts light on the mythologization and historicization of St Gióng in Vietnam’s particular historical context by decoding the Gióng symbol as a core element of the folktales and myths about St Gióng to understand the formation and development of St Gióng in the cultural history of Vietnam.

The paper is not exploring the Gióng symbol within a larger cultural context of nationalism and ethnosymbolic approach in a comparison of national symbolism and heroism.

The paper includes implications for advised scholars to conduct further exploration of the symbol and myth of not only St Gióng in Vietnam but also Kubera in India and Vaisravana in China to connect Kubera, Vaisravana and St Gióng under the connection of literal myth and heroic symbol.

The paper shows how processes of historicizing myth and mythologizing history are important features of Vietnamese socio-historical research.

The paper shows how a fertility rite became a historical festival and the figure of St Gióng became a symbol of patriotic heroism.

This chapter focuses on the potential of urban agriculture to support progress in SDG targets 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam. The chapter integrates findings from the British Council-funded project, ‘Urban Resilience from Agriculture through Highly Automated Vertical Farming in the UK and Vietnam’, undertaken in collaboration with Middlesex University, Van Lang University, and local agricultural stakeholders in HCMC. Food security in the city faces multiple challenges ranging from significant in-migration, decreasing area of cultivated land, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that continues to depress the economy and disrupt food supply chains, and climate change impacts affecting the environment and people throughout the city. HCMC accommodates a substantial agricultural sector, which is evolving from traditional to modern production practices. City’s leaders established numerous policies that emphasise green, circular economies, climate change resilience, and low carbon emissions fuelling demand for agricultural solutions that integrate traditional and modern technologies that can be embedded in the local topography, soil types, architectural space, and native culture. Findings from greenhouse trials, community awareness surveys, and stakeholder-led workshops point to a range of high-technology-supported agriculture models that, if applied flexibly throughout the varying context of the urban area, have good scope to help Ho Chi Minh City and meet its growing need for food as well as its sustainability aspirations.

In this study, the authors examine the push and pull effects of extreme weather events on migration among governorates in Egypt.

To estimate the effect of extreme weather events on internal migration, the authors use migration gravity models and data from the 1996 and 2006 Population and Housing Censuses. The authors measure weather extremes by the number of months in the past 36 months with temperatures or precipitation of a governorate below the 5th percentile and above the 95th percentile of the distribution of monthly temperatures or precipitation of the corresponding governorate during the period 1900–2006.

This study’s results suggest that high temperatures in the origin area act as a push factor. High-temperature extremes have a positive effect on out-migration. A 1% increase in the number of months with high-temperature extremes in the original governorate results in a 0.1% increase in the number of out-migrants.

The study suggests that people may respond to weather extremes through migration. However, climate migrants in Egypt may encounter several significant risks that authorities must address.

This study is one of the first attempts to measure the push and pull effect of weather extremes on migration in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment in an emerging market.

The paper begins this study by using a dynamic model to investigate the effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment. This paper uses money supply growth as a proxy for monetary loosening, as the State Bank of Vietnam relies mainly on a quantity-based policy. Next, this paper continues to analyze whether cash holdings are able to mitigate this effect. Finally, this paper examines the effect of monetary loosening on investment smoothing and the mitigating role of cash holding. The research sample includes 4,868 from 617 firms. This paper uses different regression techniques (i.e. pooled ordinary least squares clustered by firm, fixed effects, random effects and system generalized method of moments).

The research findings show that money supply growth is positively related to both corporate investment and investment smoothing. The effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment is mitigated by corporate cash holding. Moreover, this paper finds that the mitigating effect of cash holdings is stronger for financially constrained firms and non-state-owned enterprises.

Prior studies only focus on corporate investment under-tightening monetary policy; however, there is no research on firm investment under monetary loosening in an emerging market.