Essays on Economic Development in Southeast Asia

Abstract

This thesis contains three essays on economic development in Southeast Asia. The broad objective of the thesis is to study different aspects of economic development in the region. The first essay examines the determinants of the consumption gap between migrant and urban households in Vietnam, paying particular attention to the role of the household registration (ho khau) system in shaping consumption of migrant households. Our findings indicate: (1) migrant households exhibit significantly lower consumption levels than comparable urban households and the observed gap is mainly driven by differences in non-food consumption; (2) the restrictions imposed by the ho khau system contribute significantly to the gap; (3) remittances of migrant households to family members in rural regions are responsible for a considerable part of the gap; and (4) the consumption gap declines with the duration of residence of migrant households in their destination cities. The second essay examines the effect of fertility on women's labor market outcomes in Indonesia using an instrumental variable approach. Parental preferences for a mixed sibling-sex composition are used to construct an instrumental variable to identify the causal effect of fertility on a range of outcome variables, including labor force participation, full-time employment, employment in the formal sector and occupational choices. Our findings indicate that childbearing of women whose fertility was affected by the sex composition of their offspring reduces labor force participation, formal employment and employment in occupations that are physically demanding and require a high level of commitment. The effect is stronger for women aged 21-35 years and ambiguous for women aged 36-49 years. The third essay investigates fertility differentials between rural and urban areas in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. A decomposition analysis based on both linear and count data models shows: (1) differences in individual and family characteristics between rural and urban areas have the largest contribution to the gap, although the contribution varies across countries; (2) differences in women's educational attainment have the strongest effect in Indonesia and Cambodia, while the wealth effect is largest in the Philippines; (3) husband's education differentials also contribute to a significant part of the gap; and (4) women's education appears to be more important for young women in reducing the gap than for older women, while the contribution of differences in the use of contraceptives is only significant for young women.