THE ECONOMIC COST OF LEAVING FARMER-RELATED SOCIAL NETWORKS IN RURAL VIETNAM: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

Abstract

Addressing rural marginalization stands as a pivotal economic and political imperative in Vietnam, where rural areas currently sustain approximately 62% of Vietnam's population. Politically, the agrarian class has been revered as the primary catalyst within the Vietnamese revolutionary framework, epitomizing an intrinsic of the proletariat, and recognized as the "root of revolution" within the ideological framework of the Vietnamese Communist Party since 1930. This paper explored the role of social networks in rural Vietnam by estimating the economic cost of leaving such networks in terms of the reduction in household income. We used the propensity score matching method as a quasi-experimental design together with a primary survey in rural North Vietnam. Our empirical results show that leaving the farmer-related social networks costs the household 22.3-24.6% of household income. Our results suggest that farmer-related social networks are very important in rural Vietnam and it would be an endogenous potential that helps the country overcome the rural marginalization and enhance prosperity.