This study was conducted to measure the causality between public administration reforms (PAR), provincial competitiveness and GDP per capita in Vietnam. Factor analysis was firstly adopted, and then followed by the log linear regression. | JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Hue University, Vol. 70, No 1 (2012) pp. 29-37 HOW PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM PERFORMANCE CAN BE MEASURED BY PROVINCIAL COMPETITIVENESS INDEX AND PER CAPITA GDP IN VIETNAM Thai Thanh Ha1, Le Thi Van Hanh1, Nguyen Thanh Khanh2 1 National Academy of Public Administration 2 Hue School of Traffic and Transport Abstract. This study was conducted to measure the causality between public administration reforms (PAR), provincial competitiveness and GDP per capita in Vietnam. Factor analysis was firstly adopted, and then followed by the log linear regression. It has been found that there were causality linkages between those parameters mentioned above. Namely, legal institutions were the main huddles for GDP per head, while public administration reform services and public services delivery exert positive impacts on GDP per capita. The dynamism of provincial leadership was also positively influential to the GDP level per head. Conclusions and recommend dations were drawn for Vietnamese policy makers to modernize the public administration reform process. Keywords: Vietnam, Public administration reform, PCI, per capita GDP. 1. Introduction Vietnam’s fast economic development and impressive growth of the past decade can be attributed to the successfully implemented public policies and internationally accepted public governance practices that the government has actively embarked right since the start of the public administration reform. The public administration reform (PAR) in Vietnam has been considered as an ambitious process that seeks the ‘rules by laws’ within a centralized and centrally managed framework. Having been lasting for more than a decade until now, this PAR aims to lift the state governance up to a more efficiency level, and thereby to cater better public services to the people at large (?) (Dinh 1998; Painter 2003; UNDP 2009a). As a result, the whole economy of Vietnam has been functioning in a competitive mechanisim, rather than being
