New structural economics and its implications for Vietnam's high economic growth paths

Vietnam has achieved rapid growth since the Đổi Mới reforms, but sustaining momentum on the path to high-income status remains uncertain. This study analyzes Vietnam’s structural transformation through the lens of New Structural Economics (NSE), highlighting both achievements and persistent vulnerabilities. It contributes in three ways. First, it applies the Growth Identification and Facilitation (GIF) framework at the sectoral level, using recent evidence on productivity, trade, and human capital to assess Vietnam’s evolving comparative advantages. Second, it conducts a comparative analysis that contrasts the successful cases of South Korea—which has reached high-income status—and China, a major upper-middle income economy with rapid industrial upgrading, with the more constrained experiences of Malaysia and Thailand, peer economies that remain stuck in the middle-income range. Third, it integrates insights from the middle-income trap literature with the five pillars of NSE to derive policy implications. Findings indicate that Vietnam’s transformation has broadly followed comparative advantage–aligned patterns, yet faces headwinds from productivity slowdown, skills mismatches, infrastructure bottlenecks, and institutional weaknesses. At the same time, opportunities arise from global value chain restructuring, digital technologies, and the green transition, which open “windows of opportunity” for upgrading. Policy implications emphasize coordinated interventions across the five NSE pillars—industrial policy, infrastructure, human capital, firm capability, and institutions—so that comparative advantage–following strategies are embedded within a trajectory of innovation-driven capability building.