| Significant changes have been taking place in the process of national development in Vietnam since the late 1980s. Adjustments made in the country's international policy and economic policy have the effect of returning it into the world's economic development mainstream and, eventually, bringing about a steady economic performance not observed before. However, efficiency-based growth in general and the export-oriented development model in particular may also cause a distinctive pattern of uneven development in the form of disparities across space and population strata. This trend is known as the polarization reversal hypothesis, an argument advanced by Western neo-classical scholars in order to deter an active public policy intervention aimed at alleviating inequalities.; This study is aimed at detecting whether regional disparity, one of the key expressions of uneven development, has increased in Vietnam under the new pattern of growth in the 1990s. Data analysis shows that there is an increase in disparities between provinces in Vietnam with respect to important indicators such as the gross output of industrial, agricultural production, and services sector. The country appears to follow the first half of the polarization reversal hypotheses in terms of both widened gap in crucial economic indicators and spatial concentration of economic activity. Results also indicate that some aspects of regional disparities such as human development indicators had already existed even under centralized planning. |
