Why is Vietnam's Corruption Control in Privatization Ineffective? A Game Theoretic Explanation

Abstract

The reason why Vietnam is ineffective in its corruption control in privatization is explored in the bigger context of the issue: Vietnam's paradigm shift in renovation policy and corruption control. While the economic paradigm shift pattern in transitional countries (as explored in the case of Hungary) followed the paradigm shift pattern predicted in Peter Hall's model (developed from the case of the UK), Vietnam's "short-cut" in paradigm shift showed a deviation from the model. The thesis offers a game-theoretic explanation of this anomaly and the existence of corruption in privatization as well as the lack of corruption control in privatization in Vietnam and Vietnam's current paradigm shift in corruption control. This thesis shows that theories of public policy and game theory method are useful tools to understand public policy issues in many contexts, including a developing, transitional country like Vietnam.