The Vietnam War: The Cost to America and Vietnam’s Recovery Through Đổi Mới

This chapter follows one war through two very different economies. For the United States, the Vietnam War was a large but not dominant item in a rich economy. Its main economic legacy was fiscal and monetary: it was fought at the same time as an expansion of social spending, it was largely paid for by borrowing, and it was one of the pressures behind the inflation of the late 1960s and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. For Vietnam, the war was devastating. The decade after 1975 brought central planning, a US embargo, a new conflict in Cambodia and, by 1986, inflation of several hundred per cent. The reforms that followed, known as Đổi Mới, turned one of the world’s poorest countries into one of its fastest-growing exporters. The chapter is therefore as much about recovery as about war.

A note on causation. Historians and economists still debate how much of America’s 1970s inflation was caused by the war. The sources used here are careful on this point, and so is this chapter: the war was one pressure among several.

1. Background: how the war began

The 1954 Geneva Accords, which ended French rule, divided Vietnam into two states. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north adopted a socialist system influenced by China and the Soviet Union. The Republic of Vietnam in the south pursued a capitalist path backed by the United States. Civil war soon followed.^[10] The two rural economies were very different. In the north, households worked in collective production brigades that had to meet state quotas. In the south, farming was commercial and export-oriented, with tenant farmers renting land from landlords.^[10]

There are no official start and end dates for America’s war. The Congressional Research Service (CRS), which advises the US Congress, treats the conflict as running from 1964, when the number of American soldiers in Vietnam was increased to 20,000, to 1973, when President Nixon declared it over. It notes that the budgetary build-up only began in 1966 and that war spending was falling from 1970.^[2] The CRS’s estimate of war costs uses the years 1965 to 1975.^[1] In 1975 the war ended with a communist victory in the south, and the country was reunified.^[9][10]

2. Where things stand now

As of October 2026, the war is half a century in the past, and the relationship between the former enemies is dominated by trade. Vietnam’s economy grew 9.95% year on year in the third quarter of 2026 and 9.01% in the first nine months, according to official data.^[21][24] Exports in the first nine months reached $434.3 billion, up 24.5%. Consumer price inflation, however, had risen to 5.08% in September.^[21]

The United States is now Vietnam’s largest export market by a wide margin. In 2025 the US imported $193.9 billion of goods from Vietnam and exported $15.6 billion, leaving a US goods deficit of $178.3 billion. In the first eight months of 2026 US imports from Vietnam had already reached $176.1 billion.^[19] Trade policy is the main live issue. An October 2025 framework provides for a 20% US “reciprocal” tariff on Vietnamese goods, with some products eligible for a 0% rate, in return for wider Vietnamese market access for US goods. As of 1 October 2026 the two sides were still negotiating a final agreement, and the US trade negotiator said talks were “very close” to an outcome.^[20]

3. The economy before the war

The United States. America entered the war at the start of a long boom. Real GDP grew 5.4% in fiscal year 1965, military outlays were 7.4% of GDP and the federal deficit was only 0.2% of GDP.^[2] Unemployment averaged 4.5% in 1965 and consumer prices rose by just 1.6%.^[7][8] Military spending was already high because of the Cold War arms race, so the war build-up was smaller in relative terms than in earlier wars.^[2] The 1964 tax cut had been designed to counter a perceived slowdown. At the same time, President Johnson’s “Great Society” programmes were adding new social spending.^[2][6]

Internationally, the dollar sat at the centre of the Bretton Woods system. Other countries fixed their currencies to the dollar, and foreign governments could convert dollars into gold at $35 an ounce.^[5] The system relied on confidence that the United States would keep that promise.

Vietnam. Long-run estimates from the Maddison Project give an idea of living standards. In 2011 prices, GDP per head was about $1,274 in 1960 and $1,427 in 1964, the last year before large-scale US intervention.^[18] These figures cover the whole of Vietnam and are rough, but they show a poor, mainly agricultural economy. North and south had different systems, as described above.

4. The economic impact: indicator by indicator

4.1 Output and growth

United States. The war did not cause a recession. The CRS points out that military spending is part of GDP, so moving resources into the military does not by itself lower output. When a war is financed by borrowing or money creation, it usually adds to total demand.^[2] Real GDP grew 7.3% in fiscal year 1966 and 4.5% in 1967. Growth slowed to 1.2% in 1970 and 1.6% in 1971, when war spending was falling and policy was tightened, and output fell 2.0% in 1975.^[2] The CRS judges that Vietnam, like later US wars, was “not large enough to dominate economic events of their time”.^[2]

Vietnam. Here the picture is the opposite. On Maddison estimates, GDP per head fell from $1,427 in 1964 to $1,114 in 1968 and was $1,132 in 1975, about 21% below its 1964 level.^[18] Peace did not bring a fast rebound. GDP per head was $1,207 in 1980, still below the 1964 level, and only passed it in 1984.^[18] Agricultural output contracted by 0.5% in 1976 and 6.6% in 1977, and food production fell by 4.4% in 1987.^[10]

After Đổi Mới took hold, growth accelerated. World Bank data show real GDP growth of 2.8% in 1986, 7.4% in 1989, 8.7% in 1992 and 9.5% in 1995.^[14] Vietnam’s government says growth averaged nearly 7% a year in the first 30 years of Đổi Mới. Growth dipped in 2020–21 during the COVID-19 pandemic and was 8.0% in 2025.^[13][14][17] The IMF notes that growth of income per head averaged 5.6% a year from 1990, second only to China among comparable countries.^[12]

4.2 Inflation and the currency

United States: inflation and the end of Bretton Woods. Consumer price inflation rose from 1.6% in 1965 to 4.3% in 1968 and 5.8% in 1970.^[7] The Federal Reserve’s own history of the “Great Inflation” says that the Great Society programmes came “at a time when the US fiscal situation was already being strained by the Vietnam War”, and that the resulting fiscal imbalances complicated monetary policy. The Fed followed an “even-keel” practice of avoiding policy moves that might disrupt Treasury borrowing.^[6] The CRS links the rise in inflation to “rising budget deficits and expansionary monetary policy”. It adds that inflation was probably the result of a belief that the economy could grow faster than was possible, rather than a deliberate attempt to finance the war by printing money.^[2]

Rising inflation weakened faith in the dollar’s link to gold. Foreign central banks had built up more dollar reserves than the US held in gold, so the US could not convert all of them at the official price. As inflation drifted up in the late 1960s, more dollars were turned into gold.^[6] On 15 August 1971 President Nixon closed the gold window, so foreign governments could no longer exchange dollars for gold, and imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze, the first peacetime controls in US history.^[5] The Smithsonian Agreement later that year tried to save fixed rates, but it broke down, and the postwar monetary system was finished.^[5][6] These Federal Reserve sources treat the war as one strain on the budget among others. They do not say that the war alone ended Bretton Woods, and neither should students.

Vietnam: from scarcity to hyperinflation. In the early 1980s, Vietnam faced falling state food procurement and an emerging food crisis. Prices in informal private markets were reported to be ten times the official prices.^[10] Inflation rose from 92% in 1985 to 775% in 1986, according to researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).^[10] Vietnamese official sources give 774%.^[11][13] Other measures are lower. The IMF describes inflation of “about 400 percent” in the mid-to-late 1980s, and the World Bank’s GDP deflator (a broad measure of prices across the whole economy) rose 398% in 1986.^[12][14] The sources disagree because they use different price indices and periods, but all agree that this was hyperinflation.

Stabilisation came quickly once reform began. The government eased price controls, raised interest rates, limited subsidies to loss-making state firms and devalued the dong. In 1989 it sharply devalued the currency, which made exports much more competitive.^[10][12] IFPRI reports that inflation fell to 36% in 1989; the IMF says it was about 8% by 1993.^[10][12] On the World Bank’s GDP deflator, the figures are 69.7% in 1989 and 17.4% in 1993.^[14] Since 2012, consumer price inflation has mostly stayed below 4%, after spikes of 23.1% in 2008 and 18.7% in 2011.^[14]

4.3 Public finances

The US war bill. The Department of Defense estimated the war’s incremental cost (spending over and above normal peacetime defence costs) at $111 billion in current dollars. In constant 2011 dollars that is $738 billion. In the peak year, 1968, war costs were 2.3% of GDP and total defence spending was 9.5% of GDP.^[1] For comparison, the Korean War peaked at 4.2% of GDP and the Second World War at 35.8%.^[1]

How it was paid for. Unlike in the Korean War, the government tried to avoid tax rises and increased non-military spending at the same time. Borrowing from the public therefore played a bigger role.^[2] Military outlays rose from 7.4% of GDP in fiscal year 1965 to 9.4% in 1968, while non-military outlays rose from 8.6% to 9.8%. The deficit widened from 0.2% to 2.9% of GDP.^[2] Temporary 10% surcharges on income and corporate taxes in 1968 and 1969, “ostensibly to curb inflation”, produced a budget surplus of 0.3% of GDP in 1969. The CRS notes this was the last surplus until 1998.^[2] Tax cuts in 1971 then widened deficits again.^[2]

Vietnam’s public finances. Reliable fiscal data for the decade after 1975 are scarce, and this chapter does not report figures it cannot source. What the sources do show is dependence on outside support. Western and Chinese aid was declining by the early 1980s.^[10] Vietnamese researchers say Đổi Mới was made necessary partly by “a reduction of aid from socialist countries”.^[11] Aid was cut again in 1990–91 when the Eastern European socialist system collapsed, yet growth stayed strong.^[10] A two-level banking system (a central bank separate from commercial banks) was founded in the late 1980s, and decrees on the central bank and state commercial banks followed in 1990.^[11]

4.4 Trade, sanctions and key sectors

The embargo. After 1975, US–Vietnam diplomatic and economic relations stayed “essentially frozen” for over a decade.^[9] In 1977 the Carter administration proposed setting up diplomatic relations, after which it would lift export and asset controls. Vietnam first demanded several billion dollars of reconstruction aid, and Congress opposed any aid. Vietnam’s actions in 1978, including the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of its citizens, its alignment with the Soviet Union and its invasion of Cambodia, ended the initiative.^[9] Normalisation then came step by step. In July 1993 the US stopped blocking lending to Vietnam by international financial institutions. In September 1993 an eased embargo let US firms bid on projects funded by those institutions. On 3 February 1994 President Clinton ordered an end to the 19-year embargo.^[9] (One Vietnamese source dates the lifting to 1993, probably reflecting these earlier steps.^[11])

Agriculture and rice. After reunification the government tried to extend collective farming to the south, but by 1980 only 24.5% of southern farm households belonged to a collective.^[10] Vietnam imported more than 460,000 tonnes of food in both 1987 and 1988. After Resolution 10 gave households long leases on land (15 years for annual crops and 40 years for perennial crops) and freed food marketing, Vietnam became the world’s third-largest rice exporter in 1989.^[10]

Opening to trade and investment. A foreign investment law was passed in 1987.^[11] Exports of goods and services rose from 6.6% of GDP in 1986 to 36.0% in 1990, 53.9% in 2000 and 98.2% in 2025. Total trade (exports plus imports) reached 190% of GDP in 2025.^[16] Net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows were close to zero in 1986. They reached $1.9 billion in 1994, $8.0 billion in 2010 and $22.0 billion in 2025.^[16] Vietnam joined ASEAN in 1995 and the WTO in 2007, both of which drew in more foreign investment.^[12] Samsung, for example, began making phones in Vietnam in 2009 and by 2018 had invested $17.5 billion and employed 160,000 people.^[12]

US–Vietnam trade. The Bilateral Trade Agreement, in force from 10 December 2001, gave Vietnam “normal trade relations” status, which sharply cut US tariffs on most Vietnamese goods. In return, Vietnam agreed to a wide range of market-opening measures.^[9] US imports from Vietnam were $1.05 billion in 2001 and $2.39 billion in 2002, then grew to $14.9 billion in 2010, $66.4 billion in 2019 and $193.9 billion in 2025.^[19] US exports to Vietnam have grown far more slowly, to $15.6 billion in 2025.^[19]

4.5 Labour market

United States. The war years were years of very low unemployment. The unemployment rate fell from 4.5% in 1965 to 3.5% in 1969, then rose to 5.0% in 1970 and 6.0% in 1971 as the war wound down and policy tightened. It reached 8.5% in 1975, the year of the oil-shock recession.^[8] The CRS notes that war financed by borrowing typically creates a short-term boom and employment “in excess of the economy’s sustainable rate of growth”, followed by a brief contraction as defence spending falls.^[2] The human cost to the US labour force was also direct: 58,220 US military personnel died.^[3]

Vietnam. Labour was tied up in an inefficient farm system for a decade after the war. Collective farming gave workers weak incentives because output went to the collective, not the household.^[10] Land reform changed that. Between 1993 and 1998, the share of rural households taking part in land rental markets rose from 3.8% to 15.5%. Households with strong farming skills rented more land, while others rented theirs out and moved into growing sectors such as manufacturing.^[10] A 2000 enterprise law made it easier to set up private firms; 13,500 new firms were established that year, creating 300,000 jobs, according to a Vietnamese government researcher.^[11]

4.6 Poverty, human development and human capital

Deaths. War deaths are the largest human cost and are hard to measure. A study in the BMJ using World Health Organization survey data estimated 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam over 1955–2002, which includes conflicts before and after the American war.^[4] Other estimates exist and differ widely, so this figure should be read as one careful estimate rather than a settled number.

Hunger and poverty. By 1986 food production per head had fallen below the minimum level of 300 kilograms a year, and people were going hungry again.^[10] After reform, poverty fell very fast. On the national poverty line, the poverty rate fell from 58.1% in 1992 to 28.9% in 2002 and 4.2% in 2022 (the national line was revised in 2010, so the series has a break).^[15] On the international line of $3.00 a day (2021 prices), poverty fell from 57.5% in 1992 to 1.6% in 2022.^[15] The IMF calculates that about 40 million people were lifted out of poverty between 1993 and 2014.^[12] Child stunting (low height for age, a sign of poor nutrition) fell from 53% to 33% between 1993 and 1998.^[10]

Education and recovery from bombing. Vietnam reports that it achieved universal primary education in 2000 and universal lower secondary education in 2010.^[13] One striking research finding concerns physical destruction. The Vietnam War featured the most intense bombing campaign in military history. Yet Miguel and Roland found that, by 2002, heavily bombed districts were not robustly poorer, less literate or worse supplied with infrastructure than other districts.^[23] The authors are careful to say this shows local recovery “can be rapid under certain conditions”, not that it always is.^[23]

4.7 Special indicator: sanctions, aid and isolation

For Vietnam, economic isolation after 1975 was a cost of war in its own right. The US embargo blocked trade, investment and finance from the world’s largest economy, and US opposition limited lending from international financial institutions until 1993.^[9] Vietnam relied instead on the Soviet bloc, and that support shrank in the 1980s and collapsed in 1990–91.^[10][11] When the embargo ended, the effect on bilateral trade was immediate: US imports from Vietnam rose from zero in 1993 to $50.5 million in 1994 and $199 million in 1995.^[19] Vietnam’s government says official development aid “increased year by year” after relations with international lenders were rebuilt.^[11]

5. What went well and what went wrong

What went well

• US tax surcharge (1968–69). When the deficit reached 2.9% of GDP, temporary tax rises brought the budget into surplus in 1969.^[2] This shows that war deficits can be reversed quickly when the political will exists.
• Vietnam’s farm reform. Moving from collectives to household farming gave farmers an incentive to produce. Vietnam went from importing food in 1987–88 to being a top rice exporter in 1989.^[10]
• Fast, credible stabilisation. Price liberalisation, higher interest rates, cuts to state-enterprise subsidies and devaluation brought inflation down from hundreds of per cent to single digits by 1993, on the IMF’s measure.^[12]
• Gradual but steady reform. IFPRI’s researchers argue that Vietnam’s flexible, step-by-step approach had advantages over a “big-bang” approach, because each step had to win support at national and local level.^[10]
• Opening to trade and FDI. The 1987 investment law, ASEAN membership, the US trade agreement and WTO entry tied Vietnam into global supply chains. Exports rose to almost the size of GDP.^[12][16]
• Reconciliation with the US. Normalisation, the 2001 trade agreement and later partnership agreements turned a former enemy into the largest buyer of Vietnam’s exports.^[9][19][22]

What went wrong

• “Guns and butter” without enough taxes. The US expanded military and social spending together while trying to avoid tax rises, so borrowing played a larger role.^[2] Inflation then rose through the period.^[2][7]
• Monetary policy constrained by fiscal policy. The Fed’s “even-keel” practice made it harder to fight inflation.^[6]
• Price controls instead of demand restraint. From 1971 to 1974, President Nixon used four phases of controls. They were unpopular and caused shortages and distortions; when they ended, pent-up inflation was released.^[2]
• Collectivisation after 1975. Extending central planning to the south led to falling output, food imports and, by the mid-1980s, hunger.^[10]
• Isolation. A decade of embargo and conflict with Cambodia and China cut Vietnam off from Western trade and finance.^[9]
• Later boom-and-bust episodes. Even after reform, a credit-fuelled expansion in 2011–12 was followed by a property bust and a growth slowdown, according to the IMF.^[12]

6. The economics behind it

Guns and butter on the production possibility frontier. A production possibility frontier (PPF) shows the combinations of two goods an economy can make with its resources. “Guns and butter” is the classic way to show the trade-off between military goods and civilian goods. In the mid-1960s the US was close to full employment, with unemployment falling below 4% from 1966.^[8] An economy on its PPF cannot have more of both. If the government buys more of both, the extra demand shows up mainly in prices.

How war finance affects demand. The CRS sets out four ways to pay for a war: taxes, cuts in other spending, borrowing from the public, and money creation. The first two largely offset the extra demand; the last two add to it.^[2] In Vietnam’s case, the US relied more on borrowing than in Korea, and monetary policy was loose, so inflation rose.^[2][6]

The fixed exchange-rate trap. Under Bretton Woods the US had to keep the dollar price of gold fixed. That required it to limit the supply of dollars to keep confidence in convertibility.^[5] Higher US inflation made dollars less attractive than gold. Once foreign official dollar holdings exceeded US gold stocks, the promise could not be kept for everyone, and holders had a reason to convert before others did.^[6] This is a classic speculative attack on a fixed rate. The policy choice in 1971 was between tighter policy at home and abandoning convertibility; Nixon chose the second.^[5]

Why Vietnam’s hyperinflation happened. Hyperinflation is very rapid inflation, often defined as prices rising by more than 50% a month. Under central planning, the state set prices far below market levels, so goods drained into parallel markets where prices were ten times higher.^[10] Loss-making state firms depended on subsidies, and outside aid was shrinking.^[11][12] The IMF’s list of the cure (freeing prices, raising interest rates, limiting subsidies to state firms and devaluing) shows the causes in reverse.^[12]

Incentives and the PPF shifting out. Đổi Mới was above all a supply-side reform. Under collectives, a farmer’s extra effort went to the group, so effort was low: the economy produced inside its PPF. Household contracts and land-use rights let farmers keep their surplus.^[10] The first effect was a move from inside the PPF towards it. Investment, FDI and new technology then shifted the PPF outward. Rice yields rose from 3.2 to 4.9 tonnes per hectare between 1990 and 2006.^[10]

Catch-up growth and comparative advantage. The Solow growth model predicts that a country with little capital will grow fast once it can invest, because the return on new capital is high. Miguel and Roland’s finding that heavily bombed districts caught up by 2002 fits this idea.^[23] Opening to trade let Vietnam specialise according to comparative advantage, first in rice and labour-intensive goods, then in electronics assembly.^[10][12]

7. Outlook and the way forward

Vietnam’s ambitions. Vietnam aims to become a high-income country by 2045. The World Bank calculates that this needs income per head to triple, which means average growth of about 6% a year for two decades.^[17] The government’s own targets are higher: GDP of $900 billion by 2030 and $2.5 trillion by 2045, from just over $510 billion in 2025, with a goal of double-digit growth in 2026–2030.^[13] The Asian Development Bank raised its 2026 growth forecast for Vietnam to 7.8%.^[21]

Three scenarios.

• Steady convergence. A US trade deal is finalised on terms close to the 2025 framework, export growth continues, and growth stays near 6–7%. This path is roughly what the World Bank says is needed for the 2045 goal.^[17][20]
• Trade shock. Higher US tariffs or rules aimed at goods routed through Vietnam would hit the economy hard, because exports are close to 100% of GDP and the US buys a large share of them.^[16][19]
• Overheating. Inflation rose to 5.08% in September 2026 while the economy grew close to 10%.^[21] The IMF has already pointed to a credit-fuelled boom and property bust in 2011–12, so a repeat is a risk to watch.^[12]

Legacy lessons. For the United States, the lesson most economists draw is about financing: a war fought without explicit tax rises, at full employment and alongside new domestic programmes, adds to inflation.^[2] For Vietnam, the lesson is that the end of fighting is not the end of the cost of war. The first post-war decade brought little growth. What changed the path was not reconstruction money but reform: incentives, stable prices and access to world markets.^[10][12][18] Chapter 20 compares this experience with other post-war recoveries.

8. Exam-style questions

Glossary

• Incremental cost of war: spending on a war over and above the normal peacetime cost of the armed forces.
• Guns and butter: shorthand for the trade-off between military spending and civilian goods or social spending.
• Bretton Woods system: the post-1945 system of fixed exchange rates in which currencies were pegged to the US dollar and the dollar was convertible into gold for foreign governments.
• Gold window: the US commitment to exchange foreign governments’ dollars for gold at $35 an ounce, closed in August 1971.
• Price controls: legal limits on how much prices or wages can rise.
• Hyperinflation: extremely rapid inflation, often defined as more than 50% a month.
• GDP deflator: a price index covering all goods and services produced in an economy, used to turn nominal GDP into real GDP.
• Đổi Mới: “renovation”, the reforms launched in Vietnam in December 1986 to move from central planning to a market-oriented economy.
• Collectivisation: organising farming in state-directed collective units instead of private households.
• Embargo: a government ban on trade with a particular country.
• Normal trade relations: US term for the standard (most-favoured-nation) tariff treatment given to most trading partners.
• Foreign direct investment (FDI): investment by a foreign firm that gives it lasting control or influence over a business, such as building a factory.

References

1. Congressional Research Service (2010). “Costs of Major U.S. Wars” (RS22926). Congressional Research Service, 29 June 2010. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS22926.html
2. Congressional Research Service (2008). “Financing Issues and Economic Effects of American Wars” (RL31176), including Table 3, “Economic Indicators in the Vietnam Era”. Congressional Research Service, 29 July 2008. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL31176.html
3. US National Archives and Records Administration. “Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics” (from the Defense Casualty Analysis System, current as of 29 April 2008). Accessed 14 October 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics
4. Obermeyer, Z., Murray, C. J. L. and Gakidou, E. (2008). “Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme”. BMJ, 336: a137; summarised by ScienceDaily, 20 June 2008. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619194142.htm
5. Ghizoni, S. K. (2013). “Nixon Ends Convertibility of U.S. Dollars to Gold and Announces Wage/Price Controls”. Federal Reserve History, written as of 22 November 2013. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold-convertibility-ends
6. Federal Reserve History (2013). “The Great Inflation, 1965–1982”. Federal Reserve History, written as of 22 November 2013. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation
7. US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average (CPIAUCNS)”, annual averages, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed 14 October 2026; annual inflation rates calculated by the author. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCNS
8. US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). “Unemployment Rate (UNRATE)”, annual averages, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
9. Manyin, M. E. (2003). “The Vietnam-U.S. Normalization Process” (IB98033). Congressional Research Service, updated 17 June 2003. https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20030617_IB98033_adb057ddab15b4b7a2c93f5ea477716cd4d95cff.html
10. Kirk, M. and Nguyen Do Anh Tuan (2009). “Exiting from Collective Agriculture: Land-tenure reform in Vietnam”. Chapter 20 in Spielman, D. J. and Pandya-Lorch, R. (eds), Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://cgspace.cgiar.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/301e0f9a-e64a-4bc7-9a7e-e0feacac131a/content
11. Ha Huy Thanh (n.d., c. 2005). “Economic Development Relating to Hunger Eradication, Poverty Reduction and Social Equality in Vietnam”. Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO). https://ir.ide.go.jp/record/26714/files/ASE007100_003.pdf
12. International Monetary Fund (2018). “Vietnam: Raising Millions Out of Poverty” (Working Together: Vietnam and the IMF). IMF, August 2018. https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/VNM/vietnam-raising-millions-out-of-poverty
13. Viet Nam Government News (2026). “Viet Nam emerges from inflation crisis to US$510 billion economy”. Government of Viet Nam portal, 15 January 2026. https://en.baochinhphu.vn/viet-nam-emerges-from-inflation-crisis-to-us510-billion-economy-111260114144429167.htm
14. World Bank (2026). World Development Indicators: “GDP growth (annual %)” NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG; “Inflation, GDP deflator (annual %)” NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG; “Inflation, consumer prices (annual %)” FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG — Viet Nam. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/VNM/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?format=json&date=1975:2025
15. World Bank (2026). World Development Indicators: “Poverty headcount ratio at national poverty lines” SI.POV.NAHC and “Poverty headcount ratio at $3.00 a day (2021 PPP)” SI.POV.DDAY — Viet Nam. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/VNM/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?format=json&date=1990:2025
16. World Bank (2026). World Development Indicators: “Foreign direct investment, net inflows (BoP, current US$)” BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD; “Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)” NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS; “Trade (% of GDP)” NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS — Viet Nam. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/VNM/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?format=json&date=1975:2025
17. World Bank (2026). “Viet Nam: Overview”. World Bank country page, last updated 28 September 2026. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam/overview
18. Bolt, J. and van Zanden, J. L. (2024). Maddison Project Database, version 2023 (GDP per capita in 2011 US$). Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen. https://dataverse.nl/api/access/datafile/421302
19. US Census Bureau (2026). “Trade in Goods with Vietnam” (country code 5520), 1992–August 2026. Accessed 14 October 2026. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5520.html
20. Viet Nam News (2026). “Việt Nam, US continue negotiations towards reciprocal trade agreement”. Viet Nam News, 1 October 2026. https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/1801022/viet-nam-us-continue-negotiations-towards-reciprocal-trade-agreement.html
21. Business Today (2026). “Vietnam’s Quarterly GDP Grows Fastest In 4 Years As Exports Boom” (reporting Vietnam National Statistics Office data and Reuters). Business Today Malaysia, 3 October 2026. https://www.businesstoday.com.my/2026/10/03/vietnams-quarterly-gdp-grows-fastest-in-4-years-as-exports-boom/
22. Voice of America (2023). “Biden Opens Vietnam Visit by Saying Two Countries Are ‘Critical Partners at Critical Time'”. VOA, 10 September 2023. https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-opens-vietnam-visit-by-saying-two-countries-are-critical-partners-at-critical-time-/7261879.html
23. Miguel, E. and Roland, G. (2006). “The Long Run Impact of Bombing Vietnam”. NBER Working Paper 11954, January 2006. https://www.nber.org/papers/w11954
24. Viet Nam News (2026). “Nine-month GDP growth hits 9.01 per cent, closer to double-digit target”. Viet Nam News, 3 October 2026. https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/1801156/nine-month-gdp-growth-hits-9-01-per-cent-closer-to-double-digit-target.html

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