Economic growth coupled with population increase and globalization have engendered structural changes in consumption patterns around the world. Contingent on their composition, these changes can be demanding on natural resources and pose unsustainable challenges for the environment. The paper aims to provide a general framework to assess the link between changing consumption patterns and their environmental impact by focusing on the rising beef demand in Vietnam. It draws from secondary literature and data to find that the increased beef demand in Vietnam is mostly met domestically, but there is a major dependency on imports. Within Vietnam, the rising demand has contributed substantially to the carbon footprint and land use and raised waste disposal concerns. To understand the impact of Vietnamese beef demand at the global level, the paper looks at Australia. Carbon footprint and land use are estimated to provide a perspective on the plausible scale of environmental damage that can be ensued in the future. Changes in consumption patterns are an integral part of our world and will play a significant role in determining the sustainable future of our planet. Therefore, it is important to attain a better understanding of the theme and its possible impact on the environment.

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We investigate the extent to which droughts impact migration responses of rural households in Thailand and Vietnam, as well as the role of underlying mechanisms such as risk aversion and socioeconomic status that may affect the response. We combine longitudinal household data from the Thailand Vietnam Socio Economic Panel from 2007 to 2017 with monthly high-resolution (0.5°) rainfall and temperature data from the Global Historical Climatology Network Version 2 and the Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (respectively) to characterize droughts at the sub-district level. We find that exposure to two consecutive years of moderate drought decreases household participation in migration by 5.3 percentage points (11.1% of the mean). Analysis of underlying mechanisms highlights the role of socioeconomic status in shaping these reductions in migration. While drought exposure substantially erodes socioeconomic status and increases risk aversion, it is deteriorations in consumption and assets per capita that appear to shape the negative effect of droughts on migration. This pattern is consistent with the presence of an environmentally induced poverty trap, whereby exposure to climate shocks directly and indirectly reduces rural population mobility, particularly among poorer households.

This paper investigates the migration behavior of rural-urban migrants within Vietnam. It focuses on the length and intensity of migration and its respective determinants. The analysis uses panel data of 2200 rural households and data from a migrant tracking survey of 299 migrants from Vietnam. The findings show that migrants coming from rural households that faced a higher number of idiosyncratic shocks increase their stays in the cities, while those from households that experienced covariate shocks such as floods, droughts, or economic shocks shorten the lengths of their stays in the cities. An increased length of migration is also observed among migrants and households with higher human capital. Furthermore, a decreased income gap between rural and urban provinces due to the higher economic growth in the cities increases the duration of migration. With respect to the migration intensity, migrants intend to return sooner when they face shocks in the cities and the living conditions at their original places improve.JEL Classification: D13, J28, J61, O15, O18, Z13

ObjectiveWe investigate the applicability of the Big Five model in rural Southeast Asia and thereby challenge recent concerns about the validity of the model in developing countries.MethodWe use a novel data set on personality traits from rural Thailand and Vietnam (N = 3811 individuals). In our analysis, we (i) assess the factor structure of the data, (ii) test the internal consistency of the items, (iii) compare the traits across two consecutive survey waves, and (iv) employ regressions to demonstrate the economic relevance of the traits.ResultsThe results demonstrate a five‐factor structure that fits the Big Five model. We observe changes in personality traits over time but Cohen's d coefficients only range between 0.06 and 0.21. The average rank‐order stability, measured by the test–retest correlation of the Big Five between the two consecutive waves, lies at 0.21. Individual changes in personality traits over time relate to experienced shocks and appear to be largely independent of age, gender, and education. We further find that openness and emotional stability positively correlate with rural incomes.ConclusionsWhile there is skepticism, pertaining to the use of personality trait models in developing countries, our study demonstrates that their importance and usage cannot be rejected.