Investment behavior of MSMEs during the downturn periods: Empirical evidence from Vietnam

This paper analyzes panel data of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Vietnam, covering five two-year periods from 2003 to 2012, in order to understand how MSMEs' investments in their own productive fixed assets and their financial investment changed during and after the global financial crisis of 2008. It finds that MSMEs decreased productive investment and increased financial investments substantially in these periods. This, along with other findings, suggests that the global financial crisis marked the beginning of reallocation of hitherto proliferating MSMEs' resources away from their own businesses to some rapidly growing listed firms in the Vietnamese economy.