Land Allocation Policy and Income Inequality: Evidence From Vietnam
研究了越南近年放松土地流转限制的改革如何影响收入不平等，发现该政策促进了中等收入家庭增长并总体降低了不平等，但在农村地区因土地类型差异反而加剧了不平等。
Abstract Vietnam has experienced a major land policy reform in recent decades, relaxing the previously imposed restrictions on land transfer and accumulation. This paper investigates the relationship between this agricultural land reform and changes in income inequality using a microdata‐based decomposition framework. Results show that agricultural land reform is one of the most important drivers of income growth among middle‐income households in Vietnam, and has contributed to a reduction in income inequality. However, the effect is highly heterogeneous, as it favors households with particular land types; it thus leads to an increase in income inequality in rural areas despite reducing such inequality in urban regions. The findings suggest that the policy effect of land restriction relaxation can be complex due to inequalities in new opportunities as well as the initial landholding distribution.