Inequality In Thailand Research Articles

Using Mathematical Framework on Income Inequality: A Case of Thailand

This paper develops the model that can be used to analyze income inequality through mathematical and statistical approaches and the mode is introduced to income inequality in Thailand. The study precisely constructs the model displaying a structural change in income distribution among household groups as there is a growth of production in each economic sector. Based on the model, there was still the problem of income inequality in Thailand but the situation was gradually but slowly solved in the past 30 years. However, Thailand's distribution of income is likely to be negatively affected from exogenous shocks, for example, an economic crisis and the natural disaster. Moreover, the results from this model had both conformity and unconformity with the Gini coefficient as a key indicator of income inequality.

The determinants of income inequality in Thailand: A synthetic cohort analysis

This paper presents tests and estimates of the human capital model of income inequality using synthetic cohort data for Thailand: 1992–2011. The model focuses on four primary determinants of income inequality: mean per capita income levels, the variances in years of education, in the number of children, and in the number of earners in the household. All of these factors are important sources of income inequality in Thailand, with relative impacts that differ across demographic groups and types of household structure. An inverted-U relation between mean per capita income levels and inequality is found, reflecting gender differences of the head of household, differences in household composition, and variation in access to finance. Although the human capital model emphasizes education, estimates presented here show other household characteristics, such as number of children and number of earners, can be even more important sources of inequality.

タイの籾米担保融資制度の社会的コストと農民への便益

The Thai government operates a lending programme for low-income farmers, called the rice mortgage scheme. Originally, farmers without collateral used this scheme to raise a small amount of money for urgent payment in exchange for their harvested rice as collateral. The scheme also served to guarantee the lowest paddy prices and stabilise market prices, because it helped adjust excess demand and supply. However, the Yingluck government in 2011 set the loan amount per unit of paddy higher than the market prices with the aim to improve the income level of farmers, many of whom were low-income earners. The government’s decision to maintain a high loan amount （price） encouraged the farmers to sell their rice to the government instead in the markets, with the knowledge that they could earn more.This strategy has led to the rice markets being monopolised by the government as the supplier, because the government buys all the rice from the farmers at exorbitant prices. Consequently, although the farmers’ income levels may have improved in a macroeconomic sense, the scheme faces much criticism, because it may worsen rather than improve the social welfare of Thailand and its farmers.This paper aims to empirically examine the effect of setting a higher price for rice to reach income inequality in Thailand by deriving a model to measure the Gini coefficients. The findings suggest that the Yingluck government strategy of setting higher prices worsens the Gini coefficients for the farmer groups and society as a whole. The model also calculates the impact of possible amendments to the strategy for improving income inequality. The criticisms mentioned above include a huge fiscal burden, smaller benefit provision to farmers, and low-income farmer inaccessibility to the scheme. Resolving the problems of fiscal burden and low-income farmer accessibility to the scheme can improve the Gini coefficients. However, a direct rich-to-poor income redistribution policy would be far more efficient in alleviating income inequality. Therefore, the rice mortgage scheme should abandon its role for improving income inequality and focus on emergency lending for farmers while supporting and stabilising rice prices.JEL Classifications: H20, I38, Q12, Q13, Q18

Does Entrepreneurship Bring an Equal Society and Alleviate Poverty? Evidence from Thailand

Abstract The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report 2007 records that Thailand has a remarkably high entrepreneurial activity, even if compared to Japan or the United States. Many studies, including Schumpeter (1934) [1] emphasised the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth and development of a country. Entrepreneurs, characterised by their attitudes to be imaginative, innovative, authoritative, and risk-taking, drive innovation and technological change in the economy, which are crucial in economic growth and development and lead to higher income of the population. On the other hand, entrepreneurship has been considered to associate with higher inequality because the risk embodied in it. Although, during 1990 to 2002 poverty reduction in Thailand has been claimed to be success but income inequality became higher. This raise the question that does entrepreneurship have any impact on reduction of poverty and inequality in Thailand? Therefore, the aim of this paper is to study the impact of entrepreneurship in income inequality and poverty of Thailand. Towards this ends, the analysis on the impact of entrepreneurship on income of the poor, income inequality and poverty are carried out by performing regression analysis. This study uses data that are disaggregated into 76 provinces in Thailand, obtained from official government documents. The regression models follows Beck et al (2005) [2], by running regression based on cross sectional data. Results suggest that entrepreneurship, measured as the number of new business establishment, has a significant negative effect on growth of Gini-coefficient and the headcount index but there is no significant effect on income of the poor. In addition, to confirm these relationships, we expand the data by using 76 provinces of Thailand from 1995 to 2008, and are estimated by three different methods – pooled OLS, random effects and fixed effects. Based on the first two methods, we found that entrepreneurship does not have a significant impact on income of the poor, income inequality and number of poverty. However, the result of the Hausman test necessitates a re-estimation of the model by the fixed effects method. Using the fixed effects methods, our results indicate that entrepreneurship is insignificant. We take this result as evidence that entrepreneurship plays little or no role in income distribution and poverty of Thailand.

Evolution of Urban–rural Living Standards Inequality in Thailand: 1990–2006

The present study examines the developments in urban–rural living standard inequality in Thailand from 1990 to 2006 using a methodology that allows for the identification of individual contributors to changes in inequality. We also propose a method to analyze the changes over time in urban–rural living standards. We find that the urban–rural gap in living standards in Thailand has narrowed substantially since the early 1990s, both at the mean and especially for households in the upper part of the expenditure distribution; however, the narrowing of the gap at the bottom of the expenditure distribution has been negligible. The study also identifies the main individual contributors to changes over time in living standards between urban and rural areas in Thailand.

Cultures of Aspiration and Poverty? Aspirational Inequalities in Northeast and Southern Thailand

The paper provides micro-level evidence of rising inequality in Thailand, using data from an intensive study of seven communities in Northeast and Southern Thailand. This inequality affects participants’ material and subjective wellbeing, their aspirations, and the extent to which they feel these are realised. The paper argues that adaptation, expressed as reduced aspirations, could explain why the effect of material poverty on people’s satisfaction with their lives is small. The reduction in attainment of aspirations linked to socio-economic status suggests that a small, but constant group of people are being excluded from a shift in the societal consensus over what constitutes a good life.

Dynamics of Growth, Poverty and Inequality: A Panel Analysis of Regional Data from Thailand and the Philippines*

Using panel data for provinces compiled from household expenditure microdata, the present paper empirically investigates the relationships among growth, poverty and inequality in Thailand and the Philippines. The empirical model avoids the potential bias due to the fact that the entire distribution of individual-level consumption changes over time and empirical variables for growth, poverty and inequality are often compiled from the consumption distribution. The system generalized method of moments estimation results strongly suggest that inequality reduced the growth rate of per-capita consumption, and that differences in inequality explain a substantial portion of the Philippine–Thai difference in growth and poverty reduction since the late 1980s.

Tracking and Decomposing Health and Disease Inequality in Thailand

PurposeIn middle-income countries, interest in the study of inequalities in health has focused on aggregate types of health outcomes, like rates of mortality. This work moves beyond such measures to focus on disease-specific health outcomes with the use of national health survey data.MethodsCross-sectional data from the national Health and Welfare Survey 2003, covering 52,030 adult aged 15 or older, were analyzed. The health outcomes were the 20 most commonly reported diseases. The age-sex adjusted concentration index (C∗) of ill health was used as a measure of socioeconomic health inequality (values ranging from −1 to +1). A negative (or positive) concentration index shows that a disease was more concentrated among the less well off (or better off). Crude concentration indices (C) for four of the most common diseases were also decomposed to quantify determinants of inequalities.ResultsSeveral diseases, such as malaria (C∗ = −0.462), goiter (C∗ = −0.352), kidney stone (C∗ = −0.261), and tuberculosis (C∗ = −0.233), were strongly concentrated among those with lower incomes, whereas allergic conditions (C∗ = 0.174) and migraine (C∗ = 0.085) were disproportionately reported by the better off. Inequalities were found to be associated with older age, low education, and residence in the rural Northeast and rural North of Thailand.ConclusionsPro-equity health policy in Thailand and other middle-income countries with health surveys can now be informed by national data combining epidemiological, socioeconomic and health statistics in ways not previously possible.

Turning Malays into Thai-Men: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Economic Inequality in Thailand

In the mid-nineteenth century, as part of Thailand's modernization programme, Thai elites embarked on the conscious construction of a Thai national identity, which included the promulgation of three central elements: chāt [nation], sādsnā [religion] and Phra Mahāgasat [monarchy]. Essentially, these elements came to mean Central Thai ethnicity and the Buddhist religion. This paper seeks to assess the effects of Thai nationalism on ethnic relations in Thailand with an evaluation of the ethnic composition of income inequality. It specifically tests a structuralist model of social exclusion using a variety of quantitative empirical tests that rely on survey and census data in order to uncover the dynamics of Thai nationalism's effect on ethnic economic inequality. The paper ends with suggestions for a new approach to Thai nationalism.

Complementarity and Transition to Modern Economic Growth

In developing countries, income per capita typically remains stagnant for long periods before taking-off. We study this as the outcome of a gradual transition of the workforce from traditional to modern sectors. While exogenous productivity growth is present in the modern sector only, transition to the modern sector is gradual because work experience is sector-specific and complements labor. This generates an S-shaped income growth for the dual economy, the effect of which enters into TFP in an aggregate production function. We measure the theory using nationally representative micro data from Thailand (1976-1996). The technology parameters are estimated using cross-sectional earnings equations implied by the model. We find the model simulated at these estimates captures well the nonlinear dynamics of aggregate earnings growth and inequality in Thailand.

Why has income inequality in Thailand increased?: An analysis using surveys from 1975 to 1998

This paper identifies the determinants of income inequality in Thailand, which increased between 1975 and 1998. Our regression results strongly suggest the significance of agricultural factors. We also obtain some limited evidence that sectoral factors, financial development, and education level disparities play a roughly equally important role in explaining inequality changes in Thailand.

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT, SKILLS AND WAGE INEQUALITY IN EAST ASIA

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can affect the levelanddispersion of wages, but there is a lack of empirical work in this area. This paper tests for the effects of FDI on wages and wage inequality in five East Asian countries. Wage inequality has been low and decreasing in some, but not all, East Asian countries. Using ILO data for wages and employment by occupation, we do not find strong evidence that FDI reduced wage inequality in five East Asian countries over the period 1985–98. Indeed, controlling for domestic influences (wage setting, supply of skills) we find that FDI has raised wage inequality in Thailand. Because we also find that FDI raises the wages for both skilled and low-skilled workers, our findings should help to move the debate from impact (does FDI contribute to growth and development?) to appropriate policies to utilize FDI (how can we make FDI work for all?). We suggest that the education system in Thailand has not been sufficiently oriented to maximize the benefits from FDI. Countries wanting to develop on the basis of FDI should invest sufficient resources in good quality and appropriate human resources, or otherwise face the possibility that growth coincides with rising wage inequality.

Sibling Correlations and Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America

Sibling Correlations and Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America

The poor pay more: Health-related inequality in Thailand

This paper examines the equality of utilization for equal need and equity of out-of-pocket expenditure for health services in a large urban area in Thailand. Data from a household health interview survey were used to explore patterns of perceived morbidity, utilization of various treatment sources, and out-of-pocket payment. Financial access to health care, as reflected in medical benefit/insurance cover, appeared to influence reported illness and hospitalization rates. Gross lack of access to health care amongst lower socio-economic groups was not the main problem in this densely populated urban area because people could choose and use alternative health services according to their ability and willingness to pay. The corollary, however, was an inequitable pattern of out-of-pocket health expenditure by income quintile and per capita. The underprivileged were more likely to pay out of their own pocket for their health problems, and to pay out of proportion to their household income when compared with more privileged groups. Furthermore, the underprivileged were least likely to be covered by government health benefit schemes, in contrast in particular to civil servants, who paid less out of pocket and did not contribute to their medical benefit fund. The private health sector (private clinics and private hospitals) was the major provider of health care to urban dwellers for both outpatient and inpatient services. Policy options for the short and long term to improve the equity of payment systems for health care are discussed.

Income Inequality in Thailand in the 1980s

Income Inequality in Thailand in the 1980s

Empirical indicators of educational equity and equality: A thai case study

The focus of this paper is social indicator reporting, not the development of scientific generalization. This social indicator analysis involves the development of an extensive set of empirical indicators to show the extent of equity and equality of education. Equity and equality are viewed as distinct concepts, each with its own indicators. The set of indicators proposed is applied to Thailand in a case study. Examples of indicators used are (1) the relationship between socioeconomic background and access to preschool education, (2) the relationship between provincial wealth and opportunities for upper primary education, (3) proportion of females in lower primary schools, and (4) degree of equality among provinces in grant per pupil in primary education. The discrepancy ratio is introduced as an indicator to standardize measures of inequality and inequity. This set of indicators shows moderate levels of inequality and inequity in Thailand, with the most serious problems at the preschool, secondary, and higher education levels. Empirical indicators of this type are viewed as critically necessary for governments everywhere to enable them to chart their progress toward greater equity and equality.

A Theory of Marriage: Part II

A Theory of Marriage: Part II