WORKING PAPERS

Research on the US

Clement, Jeffrey; Levin, Zach; Vu, Khoa; Zhu, Yi

2nd Place Winner of the 2022 Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition, University of Minnesota (see our recorded presentation here).


Research on Vietnam

Glewwe, Paul; Lee, Jongwook; Vu, Khoa.

Abstract: Vietnam’s strong performance on the 2012 and 2015 PISA assessments has led to interest in what explains the strong academic performance of Vietnamese students. Analysis of the PISA data has not shed much light on this issue. This paper analyses a much richer data set, the Young Lives data for Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam, to investigate the reasons for the strong academic performance of 15-year-olds in Vietnam. Differences in observed child and household characteristics explain 37-39 percent of the gap between Vietnam, and Ethiopia, while observed school variables explain only about 3-4 additional percentage points (although an important variable, math teachers’ pedagogical skills, is not available for Ethiopia). Differences in observed child and household characteristics explain very little of the gaps between Vietnam and India and between Vietnam and Peru, yet one observed school variable has a large explanatory effect: primary school math teachers’ pedagogical skills. It explains about 10-12 percent of the gap between Vietnam and India, raising the overall explained portion to 14-21 percent of the gap. For Peru, it explains most (65-84 percent) of the gap.


Dang, Hai-Anh; Glewwe, Paul; Lee, Jongwook; Vu, Khoa.

Abstract: This paper evaluates how Vietnam's Escuela Nueva (VNEN) program, an educational reform for primary schools supported by the World Bank, affected the cognitive (mathematics and Vietnamese) and non-cognitive (socioemotional) skills of students in that country. We use propensity score matching to estimate both short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (5-7 years) average treatment effects on the treated (ATT). We find that the impacts of VNEN on students' cognitive skills are relatively small in the short-term, and that they are larger for boys, ethnic minorities, and students in Northern Vietnam. The VNEN program modestly increased primary school students' non-cognitive skills in the short-term; these impacts on non-cognitive skills are sizable and significant for ethnic minority students, although there seems to be little gender difference. The long-term impacts are less precisely estimated, but they appear to fade away, showing little or no impact of the VNEN program on cognitive skills. There is little variation of long-term impacts by gender or geographical region, although the imprecision of the estimates for ethnic minority students does not allow us to rule out large long-term impacts on cognitive skills for those students. The program's impacts on non-cognitive skills also seem to have dissipated in the long-term.


Vu, Khoa; Glewwe, Paul

Abstract: Escuela Nueva is a popular schooling model originating from rural Colombia in the 1970s and is adopted in several countries. In 2012, over a thousand primary schools across Vietnam adopted the model, which was found to have positive but modest impacts on learning outcomes and non-cognitive skills, especially among ethnic minority students. We conduct a follow-up study on the effect of this model on students’ learning behaviors and parental engagement activities. We find that the model increases peer-learning activities and classroom participation of students as well as parental engagement in the short run and peer-learning in the long run.


Vu, Khoa

Vu, Khoa; Lo Bue, Maria.