THE NEXUS BETWEEN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND GROWTH: APPLICATION TO VIETNAM

The paper examines the relationship between the economic integration and growth nexus in Vietnam using powerful quantitative methods, specifically the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Granger causality test. The study focuses on three types of economic integration, including overall integration, financial integration and trade integration, which affected economic growth in Vietnam from 1986 to 2015. The key finding from this study is that when three types of economic integration are considered together, integration provides positive impacts on economic growth. In addition, causal relationship exists between overall integration and financial integration, and between trade integration and financial integration. As such, financial integration is absolutely important to economic growth in Vietnam. On the grounds of these findings, the Vietnamese government should carefully outline socio-economic development strategies to maintain political stability and to derive benefits from economic integration and globalization.