Thaksin’s Legacy: Thaksinomics and Its Impact on Thailand’s National Innovation System and Industrial Upgrading

Thaksin Shinawatra was one of the most powerful prime ministers of Thailand. Undergirded by a set of new policies termed Thaksinomics, great political power, his CEO style of management, and his intention to make Thailand a developed country, his administration could have been a formidable force in transforming Thailand’s weak and fragmented innovation system into a stronger and more coherent one and in laying a long-lasting foundation for the country’s technological and industrial upgrading, as experienced in Japan and the East Asian NIEs. Thaksin’s administration paid much attention to the neglected meso and micro foundations of Thailand’s competiveness. For the first time, Thailand had explicit vertical industrial policies that were tailored to specific sectors and geographical clusters. These policies pushed existing central and regional government agencies to adjust themselves accordingly. Thaksin’s government also induced changes in the roles and behaviours of other actors in the country’s national innovation system. Nonetheless the government, to a large extent, failed to make an enduring impact on industrial and technology upgrading. There are two key factors underlying this failure: (a) deficiencies of Thaksin’s policies and implementation of those policies themselves and (b) resistance to changes by other actors in the national innovation system.- Thaksin, Thaksinomics, national innovation system, industrial and technological upgrading policies, industrial cluster, Thailand

Thailands Middle-Income Trap: Firms Technological Upgrading and Innovation and Government Policies

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2018 SJE Conference on Political Economy of the Middle-income Trap, held in Seoul.Once recognized as a high-performing newly industrializing economy, Thailand is currently in the middle-income trap. The country has remained at the middle-income level for more than 15 years. A major reason for such development is a relatively low technological learning of firms in Thailand. After a financial crisis in 1997, certain improvements transpired; for example, transnational corporations and large local firms started to invest increasingly in building rather sophisticated technological capabilities in product and process design, advanced engineering, and R&D. However, Thailand is still lacking a critical mass of innovative firms, which can pull the country out of the trap. On the government side, perpetuated ineffective science, technology, and innovation policies have been implemented for several decades

Upgrading in Global Value Chains: the Cases of High, Mid and Low Technology Sectors in Thailand

Full text of the article is available at https://doi.org/10.7545/ajip.2017.6.3.332.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/intarakumnerd_patarapong

Seven Unproductive Habits of Thailand’s Ineffective Technology and Innovation Policies: Lessons for other Developing Countries

JEL Classification Codes: O32,038Full text of the article is available at https://ijie.um.edu.my/article/view/5002.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/intarakumnerd_patarapong

University-Industry Linkages in Thailand: Successes, Failures and Lessons Learned for other Developing Countries

Presented at the GLOBELICS 6th International Conference 2008 22-24 September, Mexico City, Mexico.Universities are a critical actor in innovation systems of both developed and developing countries. In the context of developing countries, universities can play an important role as an indigenous knowledge source. Fruitful university- industry linkages (UILs) help local firms to import, modify, and diffuse technology. At the same time, universities can improve their academic capabilities if they interact with the private sector. However, appropriate explanations of UILs in developing countries are still lacking. It is the aim of this paper to identify successes and failures of UILs in Thailand by combining data from company and university surveys. In general, UILs in Thailand are still weak. But determinants for successful projects have been identified which offer the potential to serve as guidelines to improve UILs in the future. The findings of the paper contribute to the debate on the extended role of universities in developing countries for technological change and economic development