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Asia and Pacific > Thailand

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Inequality and the Structure of Countries’ External Liabilities
Philipp Harms
,
Mathias Hoffmann
,
Miriam Kohl
, and
Tobias Krahnke
In this paper, we present empirical evidence that higher income inequality is associated with a greater equity share in countries' external liabilities, and we develop a theoretical model that can explain this observation: In a small open economy with traded and nontraded goods, entry barriers depress entrepreneurial activity in nontraded industries and raise income inequality. The small number of domestic nontraded-goods firms leaves room for foreign firms to operate on the domestic market, and it reduces external borrowing. The model suggests that barriers to entrepreneurial activity could be conducive to attract equity-type capital inows. Our empirical results lend some support to this conjecture.
Keywords:
Portfolio Equity; Foreign direct investment; External debt; External liabilities; Income Inequality; entry barrier; equity share; barriers to entrepreneurial activity; traded-goods firm; Income; Portfolio investment; Self-employment; South Asia; East Asia; Foreign corporations
Cover IMF Working Papers
COVID-19 and Inequality in Asia: Breaking the Vicious Cycle
Ms. Emilia M Jurzyk
,
Medha Madhu Nair
,
Nathalie Pouokam
,
Tahsin Saadi Sedik
, and
Mrs. Irina Yakadina
The COVID-19 pandemic risks exacerbating inequality in Asia. High frequency labor surveys show that the pandemic is having particularly adverse effects on younger workers, women and people that are more vulnerable. Pandemics have been shown to increase inequalities. As a result, income inequality, which was already high and rising in Asia before the pandemic, is likely to rise further over the medium term, unless policies succeed in breaking this historical pattern. Many Asian governments have implemented significant fiscal policy measures to mitigate the pandemic’s effect on the most vulnerable, with the impact depending on the initial coverage of safety nets, fiscal space, and degree of informality and digitalization. The paper includes model-based analysis which shows that policies targeted to where needs are greatest are effective in mitigating adverse distributional consequences and underpinning overall economic activity and virus containment.
Keywords:
COVID-19; Inequality; Susceptible-Infected-Recovered Macro Model; Fiscal Policy.; WP; IMF staff calculation; pandemic course; government-imposed lockdown; coronavirus disease pandemic; pandemic recession; Fiscal Policy; Income inequality; Consumption; Asia and Pacific; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Socio-Economic Spillovers from Special Economic Zones: Evidence from Cambodia
Mariya Brussevich
This study examines the socio-economic impact of special economic zones (SEZs) in Cambodia---a prominent place-based policy established in 2005. The paper employs a database on existing and future SEZs in Cambodia with matched household surveys at the district level and documents stylized facts on SEZs in a low-income country setting. To identify causal effects of the SEZ program, the paper (i) constructs an alternative control group including future SEZ program participants and districts adjacent to SEZ hosts; and (ii) employs a propensity score weighting technique. The study finds that entry of SEZs disproportionately benefits female workers and leads to a decline of income inequality at a district level. However, the findings also suggest that land values in SEZ districts tend to rise while wage levels remain largely unchanged relative to other districts. In addition, the paper tests for socio-economic spillovers to surrounding areas and for agglomeration effects associated with clusters of multiple SEZs.
Keywords:
WP; SEZ program; SEZ entry; SEZ firm; program participation; SEZ district; SEZ location; Employment; Wages; Income; Income inequality; Labor markets; Special Economic Zones; Place-Based Policy; Low-Income Country; Foreign Direct Investment; SEZ effect; SEZ developer; SEZ trend; tagged SEZ database; SEZ program participation; SEZ intensity; propensity score weighting technique; Policy implication; impact of special economic zones; Women
Cover IMF Working Papers
Measuring Social Unrest Using Media Reports
Mr. Philip Barrett
,
Maximiliano Appendino
,
Kate Nguyen
, and
Jorge de Leon Miranda
We present a new index of social unrest based on counts of relevant media reports. The index consists of individual monthly time series for 130 countries, available with almost no lag, and can be easily and transparently replicated. Spikes in the index identify major events, which correspond very closely to event timelines from external sources for four major regional waves of social unrest. We show that the cross-sectional distribution of the index can be simply and precisely characterized, and that social unrest is associated with a 3 percentage point increase in the frequency of social unrest domestically and a 1 percent increase in neighbors in the next six months. Despite this, social unrest is not a better predictor of future social unrest than the country average rate.
Keywords:
WP; Arabic language; appendix E; political science; Social Unrest; Protest; Media; unrest events; RSUI event coding; terms OR; RSUI index; country-horizon pair; statistical analysis; RSUI data; Public expenditure review; Middle East; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; South America
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Thailand: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This paper discusses selected issues related to the economy of Thailand. The economy of Thailand is largely dependent on China. A 1 percent decline in China’s GDP lowers Thailand’s output by about 0.2 percent. Population aging is another major issue in Thailand. This Association of Southeast Asian Nations country will face the dual challenge of increasing the coverage of the social security system and ensuring its long-term sustainability. Thailand’s financial sector has expanded rapidly over the last decade, and important changes in its structure have taken place. While corporate debt has remained broadly stable, household debt has increased to one of the highest levels among emerging markets, raising concerns about household debt overhang.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Thailand; China; GDP; Other Asean-5 Countries; household debt; China shock; dependency ratio; public health expenditure; wage cap; employees of state enterprises; Pensions; Pension spending; Aging; Exports; Commercial banks; Global
Cover Behind the Scenes with Data at the IMF
Behind the Scenes with Data at the IMF
An IEO Evaluation
International Monetary Fund. Independent Evaluation Office

Abstract

This report examines whether the IMF has effectively leveraged an important asset: data. It finds that in general, the IMF has been able to rely on a large amount of data of acceptable quality, and that data provision from member countries has improved markedly over time. Nonetheless, problems with data or data practices have, at times, adversely affected the IMF’s surveillance and lending activities. The roots of data problems are diverse, ranging from problems due to member countries’ capacity constraints or reluctance to share sensitive data to internal issues such as lack of appropriate staff incentives, institutional rigidities, and long-standing work practices. Efforts to tackle these problems are piecemeal, the report finds, without a clear comprehensive strategy that recognizes data as an institutional strategic asset, not just a consumption good for economists. The report makes a number of recommendations that could promote greater progress in this regard.

Keywords:
IEOR; IEO; data; data management; evaluation; data practice; IMF data provision; model data management guideline; data management framework; data deficiency; Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS); Data dissemination; Financial statistics; Financial statements; Global; data challenge; data management initiative; evaluation team; IMF document; Data collection
Cover IMF Working Papers
Sharing the Growth Dividend: Analysis of Inequality in Asia
Ms. Sonali Jain-Chandra
,
Mr. Tidiane Kinda
,
Ms. Kalpana Kochhar
,
Shi Piao
, and
Johanna Schauer
This paper focusses on income inequality in Asia, its drivers and policies to combat it. It finds that income inequality has risen in most of Asia, in contrast to many regions. While in the past, rapid growth in Asia has come with equitable distribution of the gains, more recently fast-growing Asian economies have been unable to replicate the “growth with equity” miracle. There is a growing consensus that high levels of inequality can hamper the pace and sustainability of growth. The paper argues that policies could have a substantial effect on reversing the trend of rising inequality. It is imperative to address inequality of opportunities, in particular to broaden access to education, health, and financial services. Also fiscal policy could combat rising inequality, including by expanding and broadening the coverage of social spending, improving tax progressivity, and boosting compliance. Further efforts to promote financial inclusion, while maintaining financial stability, can help.
Keywords:
WP; income share; consumption share; countries effort; Inequality; Gini coefficient; Asia; inequality measure; IMF staff calculation; entrepreneurial activity; reducing income gap; poverty rate; per capita income; benefits capital income; net Gini in India; net Gini in Asia; Income inequality; Income distribution; Personal income; Labor share; Asia and Pacific; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Structural Transformation — How Does Thailand Compare?
Mr. Vladimir Klyuev
Thailand stands out in international comparison as a country with a high dispersion of productivity across sectors. It has especially low labor productivity in agriculture—a sector that employs a much larger share of the population than is typical for a country at Thailand’s level of income. This suggests large potential productivity gains from labor reallocation across sectors, but that process—which made a significant contribution to Thailand’s growth in the past—appears to have stalled lately. This paper establishes these facts and applies a simple model to discuss possible explanations. The reasons include a gap between the skills possessed by rural workers and those required in the modern sectors; the government’s price support programs for several agricultural commodities, particularly rice; and the uniform minimum wage. At the same time, agriculture plays a useful social and economic role as the employer of last resort. The paper makes a number of policy recommendations aimed at facilitating structural transformation in the Thai economy.
Keywords:
WP; productivity difference; low-productivity agriculture; high-productivity sector; price support; productivity differential; productivity growth; structural transformation; industrialization; agricultural price support; standard of living; Thailand's productivity gap; low-productivity activity; productivity increase; higher-productivity sector; differentials in Thailand; Agricultural sector; Productivity; Employment; Labor productivity; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Philippines: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper discusses reasons behind rise of inflation in Philippines. The paper focuses on inflation developments and the monetary policy framework in the Philippines. It employs a global latent factor model to decompose inflation into common drivers and idiosyncratic factors for a sample of 62 countries. Based on these results, it then models inflation in different regions and presents the single country, single equation model and conducts out of sample forecasts to determine consistency with the medium-term inflation target. The common factors modeling of inflation suggests that inflation in the Philippines depends on world commodity price developments and movements in the US dollar effective exchange rate. However, theory suggests that domestic cyclical conditions also matter. We assess the importance of these variables by estimating a Phillips curve augmented by world commodity prices and the nominal exchange rate for 2000–2013. Using the Akaike-Schwartz criterion, the optimal lag length is found to be four. Given the potential for serial correlation and heteroskedasticity, we use the Newey-West standard errors to find the consistent estimates.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Philippines; bank; enterprise; thrift bank; bank penetration; enterprise survey; employment growth; microfinance loan; funding cost; Inflation; Employment; Unemployment; Labor force; Credit; Global; Asia and Pacific; Middle East; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; East Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Potential Growth in Emerging Asia
Rahul Anand
,
Mr. Kevin C Cheng
,
Sidra Rehman
, and
Ms. Longmei Zhang
Using three distinct approaches—statistical filtering, production function, and multivariate model— this paper estimates potential growth for China, India, and five ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) during 1993–2013. The main findings include: (i) both China and India have recently exhibited a slowdown in potential growth, largely reflecting a decline of total factor productivity (TFP) growth; (ii) by contrast, trend growth for the five ASEAN countries has been rather stable and might even have increased marginally, with the notable exception of Vietnam;(iii) over the longer term, demographic factors will be much more supportive in India and some ASEAN economies than in China, where working-age population should start shrinking, with the overall dependency ratio climbing by the end of this decade. Improving or sustaining potential growth calls for broad structural reforms.
Keywords:
WP; ASEAN economy; China; economy; trend growth; India; potential growth; total factor productivity; emerging Asia; dependency ratio; inflation picture; non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment; production function; Capital accumulation; Inflation; Aging; Labor force participation; Asia and Pacific