Climate Change, Governance Quality, and Poverty: Empirical Insights from Vietnam’s Provincial Level

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper studies the impacts of governance quality with various dimensions on poverty under the context of climate change for a panel data set of 63 provinces in Vietnam over the period 2006–2021. Results reveal that governance quality reduces poverty through the channels of public service delivery, control of corruption, democracy, transparency, vertical accountability, and public administrative procedures. Remarkably, such dimensions of governance quality as public service delivery, control of corruption, democracy and transparency have more pronounced adverse effects on poverty compared to the influence of vertical accountability and public administrative procedures. However, climate change not only exacerbates poverty, but also mitigates the favorable impact of governance quality on poverty reduction. Findings imply that leveraging the diverse aspects of governance quality can effectively combat poverty, provided that climate change is addressed concurrently.