The Effect of Exchange Rates on Agricultural Goods for Export: A Case of Thailand

This paper examined the relationships between exchange rates and the volumes of Thailand’s top two majors agricultural goods export which were rice and rubber exports. The results indicated that exchange rates had negative significant effects on Thailand’s agricultural goods export volumes. Results also showed that the exchange rates influenced total agricultural, rubber, and rice goods export volumes respectively. For the qualitative research, interviewing 17 business men who came from rice exports companies 6 persons and from rubber exports companies 11 persons used the in-depth interview. The results showed the effect of exchange rate had strong fluctuation then exporters could not handle it on time, and make the problems all parts of working in companies. Moreover, the best way to do hedging exchange rate risk for exporters, Companies had to book the forward contact in order to reduce the risk

Urban Poverty in Thailand: Critical Issues and Policy Measures

Thailand has been experiencing significant economic growth since World War II. The economy has gone through various phases of development and transformation. Thailand is linked with other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Viet Nam. The Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR), with a population of over 9 million, along with other five nearby provinces (Nakon Patom, Samut Prakarn, Samut Sakon, Northaburi and Patumthani), is one of the most important and fastest growing cities in Southeast Asia

ASEAN FTA, distribution of income, and globalization

This paper examines the impact of Free Trade Agreements on income distribution within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and between the members and their trading partners outside ASEAN. The study uses a Computable General Equilibrium model, a modified version of the 57 sector, 87 country, Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) integrated model of national input-output tables, version-6.2 (2001 database) with its reserve matrix facility, to simulate income distribution results as an outcome of certain parameter changes that appear in intra and inter regional trade. Within ASEAN, trade liberalization will stimulate the output of each country within the region according to their comparative advantage. Since trade liberalization tends to increase output of capital-intensive goods more than labor-intensive goods, the less-developed countries within the region tend to get smaller benefits compared to other member countries. In addition, the physical means of production tend to gain more relative to the gains of labor from the FTAs. This tends to widen the income gap between high-income and low-income households within ASEAN. Comparing ASEAN and the developed non-ASEAN countries, an FTA within ASEAN tends to reduce the returns to labor of the developed non-member countries and narrow the income gap between ASEAN, as a whole, and those rich countries since capital-intensive products of developing countries are often labor-intensive goods of developed countries.ASEAN Income distribution Regional integration CGE model