Did Vietnam's market-based labor export policy aid its economic take-off? A synthetic control approach

Vietnam's market-based labor export policy (LEP) was adopted in 1991. Using the synthetic control method, I estimated the effect of this LEP on Vietnam's per capita GDP. The results show that the gap between the actual and synthetic per capita GDP widened ten-fold from 1991 to 2000. The average annual growth effect over the first four years was 2.2 times that of the last five years. The findings imply that the market-based LEP positively influenced the early stages of Vietnam's economic reform and was a cause of Vietnam's economic take-off.