Does the power of the king stop at the village gate? Embeddedness and provincial development in Vietnam

At a subnational level, studies typically find that embedded or local leaders are better at providing public goods relative to leaders appointed from other areas. This paper tests whether this finding holds in the context of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Specifically, it examines the impact of a cadre transfer policy whereby the central government assigns (nonresident) officials to provincial leadership positions rather than them being elected locally. Using data covering the period 2005–2017, changes in the development of provinces led by local (embedded) leaders versus nonlocal leaders are compared. Provincial development is measured using the incidence of headcount poverty as well as “vegetation” and “build-up” indices constructed using satellite data. Using fixed-effects modeling, findings suggest that improved provincial development is associated with nonlocal leaders. This finding is in contrast to those of existing studies including those examining embeddedness in other authoritarian states.