The one aspect that drives the Vietnamese is their cultural similarity and a view that the future might be better. One will in most cases not find the same happening in other less developed countries, especially not in Africa, where faction fighting and diverse populations limit the development of anything that might resemble a vibrant economy.

Duncan: Hmm, don’t know Vietnam well enough, but not sure I agree with you on this one, Robert. Big differences between South and North (beyond that little matter of the war…), and substantial ethnic minorities, although those have to some extent been left behind by the ‘Vietnamese miracle’. And other Asian take-off countries like Malaysia are of course, very diverse.

Duncan: Does it Jane? I’ll have to go back and take another look. As I remember it, de Soto’s big idea was that property rights enable people in the informal economy to break into the formal economy, particularly credit systems, not that there were substantial informal financial systems already in operation.

Duncan: know what you mean Ken, some people take refuge in the informal economy to avoid taxes and red tape, but in a fairly non-predatory and effective state like Vietnam’s, that also means sacrificing a lot of potential benefits. The ones we talked to certainly didn’t seem to be off the radar through their own choice.