Between 2003 and 2007, under the auspices of Programs 132 and 134, the government of Vietnam transferred approximately 21,000 Hectares of land to 43,000 minority households in the Central Highlands region. The programs specified relatively sharp eligibility criteria: Households with less than one hectare of land were eligible for a “top-up” to this threshold. The primary purpose of our project was to evaluate the implementation of these programs, and to assess the impact of this “treatment” on the welfare of ethnic minority households. To do so, we draw on a household-level survey that we carried out in the Central Highlands at the end of 2007. Our primary sample is a panel of households that were also surveyed in 2002 as part of the VHLSS. These data provide a useful baseline for our analysis. Altogether, our survey includes a panel of 1128 households, including 837 ethnic minority households. Our key findings are that 1)
Programs 132 and 134 were not implemented as designed. One major constraint appears to be the
availability of land for redistribution. In Kontum province, where land is more plentiful, we estimate relatively high treatment rates. Nowhere, however, do we estimate a link between predicted eligibility and ex post program participation; 2) A corollary of the weak link between eligibility and treatment is that benefits of the land program did not reach the poorest households, but went to middle and upper-income households; 3) In Kontum, we estimate that the land program provided benefits to households in line with what one would predict given the local productivity of land. Outside Kontum, we found no detectable benefits of land redistribution. Perhaps this is because it is too early to estimate the full impact, or alternatively, the program was too small relative to other changes occurring in the Central Highlands during this time period