Sources and Pro-Poorness of Thailand's Economic Growth

Looking back around half a century, Thailand has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world. lt also possesses an impressive record in term of poverfy reduction' Whether the two phenomena are related and, if so, how, are of great interest to academic and policymakers. This paper attempts to shed some light on this issue, by first trying to provide descriptive explanation of what caused economic growth in the past 50 years, separated into five sub-periods, and then quantirativeiy calculates how much growth contributed to the reducfron of poverty since 1986. We argue that the impressive growth rates could be attributed to the country's high and rising openness. sound macroeconomic management emphasizing stability in both fiscal and monetary policies, promotion of market meehanism and private sector' strcngthening of key public policy agencies, and appropriate.mix of quantity and quality of human resources. There were some disruptions in the growth process, most notably during late 1970s up to early 1980s, and the 1997 hnancial crisis. The disruptions were caused both by cxternal factors, such as world recessions, effective appreciation of local culrency under fixed exchange rate, and by domestic factors such as failure to timely adjust exchange rate system, lack of good goverrance in both public policy and private businesses. The second part of the paper is the analysis of pro-poorness of overall economic growth and the irnportance of incolne sources in reducing poverty. Applying Kakwani et.al (2004),s methodology to Thai household data during 1986-2002, it is found that, before the crisis, economic growth helped poor more than proportionately since around 1992, when compared to the succeeding period of 1986-1992. After the crisis, the growth was unfavorable to the Thai poor only in 1999. Using household survey in 2000, the poverty elasticify is calculated at-1.206, meaning that for every I percent increase in average per capita income, poverty would reduce by l'206 percent' As for the importance of income sourccs in poverty reduction, the poverty elasticity indicates in-kind income, while the poverty reform index indicates rural non-form income and urban salary and farm-income as the most important income components in poverty reduction.Thailand, economic growth, poverty reduction

A Proposed HR Plan to Enhance Employee Motivation: A Case of MTA State Enterprise, Thailand

Nowadays, with the reality of competitiveness, every organization is struggling to obtain competitive benefits as well as better performance and attain productivity plus effectiveness. Companies throughout the world, therefore, take human resources into account as the essence for business as they constantly escalate employee motivation as the force in letting employees achieve goals and organizational objectives towards more effective organizational performance. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors among operational-level officers affecting organizational performance of MTA state enterprise, Thailand and recommend plans to  enhance their motivation for better  company performance. Quantitative data was obtained  through distributed online and paper questionnaires from 260 officers at operational level used as  sample size.    The results revealed  that there was significant effect between recognition, empowerment, performance appraisal, and training and career development toward organizational performance ; whereas as for demographic factors, there was significant difference among only genders and performance. Among all of these five independent antecedents, recognition possessed the strongest effect on organizational performance.  It could be concluded that it is  imperative for the HR department of MTA state enterprise to implement plans on enhancing their motivation through relevant workshops, activities and set-up new criteria or regulations within the company in exchange for higher organizational performance

Thailand's Growth Rebalancing

This paper reviews Thailand's structural changes, the 1997 crisis experience, and recovery and lessons from the crisis. The paper then discusses the impacts of the subprime crisis on the Thai economy and the policy responses to date. The paper ends by discussing strategies to rebalance growth by reducing the dependence on exports as the main growth engine. The recovery from the 1997 crisis left Thailand more dependent than ever on exports as the main engine of growth, with the ratio of exports to gross domestic product (GDP) increasing from a precrisis level of about 38% to about 65% recently. The lessons learned from the 1997 crisis led to a more risk-averse financial system, and this helped Thailand avoid the direct impacts of the subprime crisis. However, being highly dependent on exports, Thailand, along with other export oriented East Asian economies, is now heavily affected by the indirect impacts of the subprime crisis, especially in the export industries. Exports and GDP have dropped sharply over the past two quarters. The government has been using fiscal stimulus and monetary easing measures to try to improve the economy. These measures are mostly short-term in nature, and if the subprime crisis is protracted, then the sustainability of the fiscal stimulus will be called into question. In the medium- to long-term, Thailand needs to move to a more balanced growth path, depending less on exports (although exports will still be important) and more on other, domestic sources of growth. The paper concludes by discussing a number of policy strategies that will contribute to a more balanced growth path.thailand growth rebalancing; exports; trade statistics; financial crises

Financial Integration in the Pacific Basin Region: RIP by PANIC Attack?

We exploit advances in panel data econometrics to test whether real interest parity holds in the Pacific Basin region. We test for a unit root in the difference between either the US, Japanese or Euro area real interest rate and the real interest rates from a panel of eleven Pacific Basin economies. Unlike extant studies which test for RIP using panel data, we use Bai and Ng's (2004) PANIC test which allows for a very general model of cross-section dependence, including the possibility of cross-unit cointegration. Ignoring the possibility of cross-unit cointegration can lead to severe size distortions and to an over-rejection of the null hypothesis of a unit root. We overturn earlier findings based on first generation panel tests, and demonstrate that cross-unit cointegration lead to incorrect conclusions. We find that RIP holds in the Pacific region. Real interest rates converge to the US rate. We find no support for the hypothesis that Pacific Basin real interest rates converge to either the Japanese or Euro area rates.Real Interest Parity, Pacific-Basin Capital Market Integration, Panel Unit Root, PANIC.

The importance of public investment for reducing rural poverty in middle-income countries

This study estimates the impacts of different types of government expenditure on agricultural growth and rural poverty in Thailand. The results show that, despite Thailand's middle-income status, public investments in agricultural R&D, irrigation, rural education, and infrastructure (including roads and electricity), still have positive marginal impacts on agricultural productivity growth and rural poverty reduction. Additional government spending on agricultural research and development improves agricultural productivity the most and has the second largest impact on rural poverty reduction. Investments in rural electrification reduce poverty the most and have the second largest growth impact. These two investments dominate all others and are win-win for growth and poverty reduction. Road expenditure has the third largest impact on rural poverty reduction, but only a modest and statistically insignificant impact on agricultural productivity. Government spending on rural education has only the fourth largest impact on poverty, but a significant economic impact through improved agricultural productivity. Irrigation investment has the smallest impact on both rural poverty reduction and productivity growth in agriculture. Additional investments in the Northeast region contribute more to reducing poverty than investments in other regions. This is because most of the poor are now concentrated in the Northeast and it has suffered from under investment in the past. The poverty reducing impacts of infrastructure investments, such as electricity and roads, are particularly high in this region. The growth impacts of many investments are also greatest in the Northeast than in other regions, hence there is no evident tradeoff between investments for growth and investments for poverty reduction. Thailand is a middle-income country and it is insightful to compare these results with similar studies undertaken in low-income countries like India, China, and Uganda. Some of the results are similar, for example, the high returns to public investments in agricultural research and some kinds of rural infrastructure arise in most countries because of the inherent market failures associated with these types of public goods. But others results are different. For example, the returns to public investment in education in Thailand are quite low, partly because of increasing private investment but also the inappropriate composition of much public spending on education. Within infrastructure, results from low-income countries often show higher returns to road investments than telecommunications and electricity. But in the case of Thailand, it is investment in electricity that shows the highest return. Thailand has invested heavily in rural roads and a dense road network has already been built, suggesting that additional investment may yield diminishing returns. Also, there has been significant investment by the private sector in rural telecommunication, leading to a much-reduced role for the public sector. This situation differs from many low-income countries, especially in Africa, where the private sector is still embryonic and the public sector must play a dominant investment role for the foreseeable future.

The Influence Of Dietary Energy, Protein And Copper Levels On The Sulphur Amino Acid Requirements Of Broiler Chickens

Three experiments were conducted with male broiler chicks to determine the influence of dietary metabolisable energy ( ME ) , crude protein (CP) and copper (Cu ) levels on the total sulphur amino acid (TSAA) requirement of broilers both during the starter ( 0-3 wk) and t he grower periods ( 4-6 wk) reared in the tropics . In all the experiments the parameters used to evaluate the TSAA requirements are body weight gain , feed : gain ratio and carcass composition. In the first experiment , two factorial arrangements of three ME levels ( 3000 , 3200 and 3400 kcal /kg ) x four level sof TSAA ( 0 . 73 , 0 . 83 , 0 . 93 and 1. 03% ) and the same three ME levels ( 3000 , 3200 and 3400 kcal /kg ) x four levels of TSAA ( 0 . 65 , 0.72 ,0.79 and 0.86% ) were used for t he starter and the grower periods,respectively . The results showed significant differences ( p< . 05 ) in body weight gain and feed : gain ratio of the broilers within creasing dietary TSAA levels both in starter and grower periods. There were no significant interaction ( p< . 05 ) between dietary ME and TSAA levels for the performance , with the exception for feed in take of starter broilers . It indicated that for the starter period , a TSAA of 0 . 93% produced the best performance regardless of energy levels while for the grower period the requirement of TSAA at both 0 . 79 and 0 . 86% were suggested . The results further showed that dietary energy levels had no effect on the TS AA requirement of the broilers