Abstract:

While greater trade liberalisation is expected to boost Vietnam's economic growth and contribute to the country's market economy transition, there are concerns about potentially negative impacts on vulnerable groups.

To explore the possible impacts of trade liberalisation on children in poor communities, this paper examines key mediating factors that impact child well-being and the ways trade reforms could affect these variables. It employs a sequential mixed methods approach: econometrics analysis of household survey data followed by complementary in-depth qualitative analysis of two key agricultural commodity sectors, aquaculture and sugarcane, expected to be significantly impacted by Vietnam's increasing market integration.

The quantitative findings identify significant differences in child well-being outcomes based on household poverty status and vulnerability to declining living standards, parental education levels, and overall community poverty status. The qualitative results provide complementary insights on underlying intra-household dynamics and familial coping strategies in the context of economic shocks that contribute to a richer understanding of the potential linkages between trade reforms and intra-household poverty. The paper concludes by discussing policy implications.

Abstract:

We investigate the determinants of high school students' academic attainment in mathematics, reading and science in the United States; focusing particularly on possible differential impacts of ethnicity and family background across the distribution of test scores. Using data from the NELS200 and employing quantile regression, we find two important results. First, the gaps in mathematics, reading and science test scores among ethnic groups vary across the conditional quantiles of the measured test scores. Specifically, Blacks and Hispanics tend to fare worse in their attainment at higher quantiles, particularly in science. Secondly, the effects of family background factors such as parental education and father's occupation also vary across quantiles of the test score distribution. The implication of these findings is that the influence racial and family background factors may have on academic attainment, which are commonly identified on the basis of a conditional mean distribution of test scores, may not tell the whole story the attainment discourse has to note.