Estimates of Quarterly Real GDP for Vietnam

Abstract

The lack of sufficient quarterly data on output is often a problem confronting research on the Vietnamese economy which has been attracting attention from academicians as well as policy makers. This paper provides estimates of quarterly real GDP in the period 1992q1-2007q4 for Vietnam using the Chow-Lin method. A contribution is that, instead of choosing the related series ad hoc as often done by several previous studies, I choose the interpolators, namely the nominal interest rate and real money supply, based on a theory: the LM curve. Despite the very limited data of a developing and transition country like Vietnam, this choice is feasible, and the quality of interpolated data turns out to be fairly good. The approach of this paper might be used for such cases as quarterly-monthly GDP interpolation.