The Impact of Remittances on Saving Behaviour and Expenditure Patterns in Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My comments are as follows: I) contribution of this study is missing. 2) Time period justification is missing. 3) variables selection justification is missing 4) literature review can be updated. 5) Missing variables diagnostics is missing. 6) Sample selection is not justified. 7) Robustness of findings are missing. 8) discussion can be improved. 9) policy implications can be improved. 10) limitations of this study is missing.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the useful comments.

Here are our replies to the ten issues mentioned by the reviewer:

1) We have added a more explicit statement on our research question in the last paragraph of the introduction.

2) We have expanded our motivation for the use of the 2012 VHLSS dataset in the fourth paragraph of section 2.2.

3) Our choice of variables follows the existing literature. We believe that this justifies our selection of variables. From the comment it is not clear to us what the reviewer wants us to do more.

4) The literature review has been updated with references to the work of Quartey et al. (2019); Opiniano (2021); Salahuddin et al. (2022); and Ait Benhamou and Cassin (2021).

5) We performed a Lack Of Fit test on which we now report in the first paragraph after Figure 1. The result of the test suggests there is no immediate evidence of missing variables.

6) See our reply to point 2.

7) As we explain in the paper, the use of different matching algorithms is an appropriate way to explore the robustness of our findings. The supplementary materials provide a lot of details on the tests we have performed and their results.

8) We have expanded the discussion of the policy recommendations in the conclusion. Since the comment is very general, we do not know exactly what other changes the reviewer would like us to make.

9) We have modified the policy implications in the third paragraph of the conclusion.

10) The limitations of the study are discussed in the last paragraph of the conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

I consider the topic raised by the authors of the article to be relevant. Since all studies on the quality of population life, the level, structure and sources of its income are of value primarily for the formation of a socio-economic strategy at the level of the government. This is a necessary material for the analysis and implementation of the state domestic economic policy.

The authors chose to study the impact of remittances on savings behavior and expenditure  patterns in Vietnam. The introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the issue under consideration and the degree of its study both on a global scale and specifically in Vietnam.

It is necessary to note the well-built structure of the article. After the introduction, the methodological apparatus used, the software used, the structure and characteristics of the data are exhaustively described.

In the results section, the authors highlight the features of households that affect the propensity to receive remittances, as well as assess the impact of remittances on the structure of household expenditures.

The discussion section summarizes the sensitivity analysis of the findings and their comparability with other studies. In the conclusions, the authors summarize the results of the study, give a number of remarks on the relativity of the practical applicability of the findings. They also describe the main limitation of the study.

I would like to note the valuable conclusions of the authors regarding the fact that “for the economy as a whole, remittances can create more opportunities for the development of services provided by banks, financial institutions, hospitals and medical centers, stimulate the production of building materials and tangible assets”, as well as the need to “ consider other sources of capital to improve education, especially in rural Vietnam." However, in my conclusions, a more detailed analysis of the practical application of the results of the study was not enough for me.

Authors should also formulate a scientific hypothesis or scientific questions at the end of the introduction.

I recommend the publication of this work after the correction of comments.

Thanks to the authors and editors for the opportunity to discuss this article. Good luck!

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the positive appreciation of our paper and the useful comments.

In reply to the two specific issues which the reviewer has raised towards the end of the review report:

1) We have modified and expanded the discussion of the policy recommendations in the third paragraph of the conclusion. We refer to the work of Yoshino et al. (2020) which looks at the role of remittances in a broad set of countries from the Asia-Pacific region.

2) We have added a more explicit formulation of our research question in the last paragraph of the introduction.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is interesting and corresponds to Journal areas. The paper well-structured. However, before publishing, some corrections should be done:

The paper would benefit if the extended the literature review by the latest publication on the analysed issues (2019-2022). In the present version, mostly all references were not early that 2008 (few 2018 and 2022)

It would be better to explain why the author chose 2012 year. Maybe some changes in the country were in the economy, political, social or other sectors. As now is 2022 - 10 years have passed. 

I recommend using Academic English, avoiding the personal sentences: we conclude, we were not able to investigate the impact, we find and etc. 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the useful comments.

In reply to the issues raised by the reviewer:

1) The literature review has been updated with references to the work of Quartey et al. (2019); Opiniano (2021); Salahuddin et al. (2022); and Ait Benhamou and Cassin (2021). Moreover, in the conclusion we refer to Yoshino et al. (2020).

2) We have expanded our motivation for the use of the 2012 VHLSS dataset. In the fourth paragraph of section 2.2 we now write: “We use the VHLSS 2012 dataset because it contains a special module on migration with extensive data on both migrants and how much they send home – information which is missing in earlier and later waves of the VHLSS survey. This also explains why the VHLSS 2012 dataset has been used in other studies of migration in Vietnam, such as the volume on rural-urban migration edited by Liu and Meng (2019).” The reference to the work of Liu and Meng (2019) is new.

3) We are a bit puzzled by the remark about the use of Academic English. In economics it is customary that authors use “I” or “we” when they refer to choices and decisions they have made. Papers that use a lot of passive constructions are hard to read.