Real estate boom in Vietnam and its implication for resource (mis)allocation
1 The impact of real estate boom on manufacturing firm investment: Implications for resource misallocation in Vietnam Kha Nguyen Student ID: 13B22516 Senior Project submitted to Discovery Program for Global Learners, Okayama University, Japan July 2026 Abstract: This study examines how rising land prices affect firm investment in Vietnam’s manufacturing sector, drawn on the theoretical framework of Ting Chen et al. (2017). Using firm-level data on 500 listed companies and land price indicators in Vietnam’s two largest cities, we find limited support for the collateral hypothesis, which argues that rising land values allow firms to borrow and invest more. In fact, our data show that higher land-holding value by firm is associated with lower productive investment. The results are more consistent with speculation and crowding-out effects, although the evidence is not fully robust. We observe some patterns in which firms with greater land value tend...