In theory, exchange rates and economic growth are regarded as having an indirect link via trade and capital investment. However, empirical investigation of this link in the context of one specific country has not hitherto been seriously considered, and Vietnam is no exception. It is essential that policy makers have insight into the extent to which exchange rates impact on their country's rate of economic growth. This paper aims to do so for Vietnam. By conducting a Vector autoregression (VaR) estimation, the Granger Causality test, and impulse response, the article aims to analyze empirically the effects of real exchange rates on economic growth in Vietnam from 2007 to 2017 using quarterly data. The results show a positive relationship between real exchange rates and economic growth. A one percentage point real depreciation in Vietnamese dong rates (VND) may lead to a 1.61923 percent growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) in this country, but this takes effect only during the first four periods (or lag 1). Moreover, The variance decomposition of forecast errors (FEVD) outcome also reveals that the real effective exchange rate (REER) made only a small contribution to GDP growth over the decade to 2017 compared to earlier periods. Contribution/ Originality: This is one of very few studies that investigate the link between exchange rates and economic growth in Vietnam using real exchange rates in a VaR model.

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.