Corruption and poverty impact on health sector in Vietnam

This study investigates how corruption and multidimensional poverty interact to affect provincial health outcomes in Viet Nam. Using panel data from 54 provinces over the period 2016–2023, under–five mortality is employed as dependent variable. Two corruption indicators are used varied perspective: corruption control perceived by firms and corruption control perceived by citizens. To estimate the data, the study applies OLS, FE model, and two step system GMM estimators to correct for reverse causality between health expenditure and mortality. Results show that poverty and corruption have a negative influence on child mortality. Moreover, corruption significantly amplifies the moderate effect of poverty, especially from the firm viewpoint. In addition, when endogeneity is addressed, health expenditure no longer impacts the outcome. This suggests that government spending is a responsive phenomenon. The findings imply that in order to improve healthcare performance in Viet Nam, it required higher level of accountability and poverty reduction in all dimensions.