This article examines the effect of institutional quality on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in Vietnam, using a set of panel data from a Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey and inward FDI to 59 provinces and cities of Vietnam in the period of 2010-2017. This study also accounts for the fundamental determinants of FDI and gravity variables that are widely used in studies of FDI. In order to tackle the problem of endogeneity including reverse causality, a very classic problem facing almost the researches on determinants of FDI, this study applies Difference Generalize Method of Moments (GMM) estimation with period-specific predetermined instruments to investigate the relation between quality of provincial governance and FDI inflows. After controlling for factors other than institutional quality, the outcome shows that the provincial competitiveness index in terms of institutional quality is significant in explaining the difference in inward FDI from province to province in Vietnam. Contribution/ Originality: This is one of the first panel data studies of institutional effect on FDI inflows at the provincial level in Vietnam using the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) as a proxy for the quality of regional institutions.

This article aims to examine the effect of remittances, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and imports on economic growth in Vietnam, using a set of time series data in the period of 2000-2018, applying the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. Also, an Error Correction Model (ECM) derived from ARDL model is utilized to check the short-run dynamics. From the empirical result of the study, it is showed that there is a long-term relationship among remittances, FDI, imports and economic growth in Vietnam during the period time of study. Specifically, remittances and imports have significantly positive impacts while FDI has negative influence on economic growth. In the short run, the growth effects of remittances and FDI are similar to those in the long run while the effect of imports is statistically insignificant. Finally, the model passes relevant diagnostic tests for time series data and the parameters are proved to be stable over time.Contribution/ Originality: This is one of the first time series studies using ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration to examine both long run and short run effects of remittances, Foreign Direct Investment and imports on economic growth in the case of Vietnam. INTRODUCTIONAfter over 30 years of renovation and international economic integration, Vietnam has made great achievements in socio-economic development. The economy continues to maintain a fairly high growth rate. From one of the poorest countries in the world, Vietnam has escaped from underdevelopment situation, becoming a middle-income country with GDP per capita in 2019 reaching nearly 3,000 USD. The question "What are the driving forces behind the growth of Vietnam economy in recent decades?" remains of great concerns.A wide range of studies on determinants of economic growth pointed out that Vietnam, like many other developing countries, seems to benefit a lot from international financial flows especially remittances and FDI. In 2019, with the amount of remittances reaching $16.7 billion, Vietnam continues to be in the top 10 remittances recipient countries in the world. The FDI inflows also bloom at $38.1 billion, hitting a 10-year record. Remittances and FDI are said to have the greatest impact on economic growth with respect to creating job, generating income, developing infrastructure, and contributing to the improvement of the international balance of payment. However, the influence of international financial flows on the economic growth is still controversial. A few other studies have

This article investigates the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into Vietnam's import price and consumer price index employing the trade data between Vietnam and Korea for the period from Jan 2008 -March 2017 on a monthly basis. From the empirical outcome of the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model, the ERPT coefficients for import price are quite low and statistically insignificant, which implies that the price of importing goods from Korea might depend mainly on other factors rather than KRW/VND exchange rate. On the contrary, the transmission from exchange rate to Vietnam's consumer price index is so complete that a 1% shock in exchange rate can cause a change by 0.994% in consumer price index at lag order 2. This result is further confirmed by variance decomposition and Granger causality tests which reveal that the exchange rate shock builds the strongest influence on the fluctuation of Vietnam's inflation rate. Contribution/ Originality:This study is one of the first time series studies using the trade data between Vietnam and Korea to investigate ERPT into import prices and inflation in Vietnam. It also contributes to the limited critical review in this domain for the developing countries in South East Asia.