Trade liberalization and performance: the impactof WTO accession on firm productivity, turnover and exports in the case of Vietnam's manufacturing sector: 2007-2013

Since the landmark event in 2007 of the accession to the WTO, it was expected that extensive trade reforms and the accelerated pace of integration with the global economy would positively contribute to the performance of the manufacturing sector in Vietnam. This thesis aims to make an additional contribution by examining the performance of the Vietnamese manufacturing sector in the face of trade liberalization and market-oriented transition reforms. The thesis starts with the examination of the effects of trade reforms on manufacturing performance at the firm level from 2007 to 2013. The semiparametric approach developed by Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) is used to control for simultaneity bias in the estimation of a production function and to obtain TFP estimates. The finding that lower levels of protection are significantly associated with higher firm productivity in Vietnam lends some support to the proposition that trade opening has a positive impact on promoting the manufacturing performance of many developing countries.