 The Structural Transformation of Thailand: The Role of Policy DistortionNavarat Temsumrit and Hongsilp Sriket Asian Development Review (ADR), 2023, vol. 40, issue 01, 203-245 Abstract: Thailand and the Republic of Korea were developing at a similar pace during the 1960s. However, the Republic of Korea’s economic development rapidly expanded from the 1970s onward, leaving Thailand lagging far behind. This paper investigates the labor productivity slowdown in Thailand using a nine-sector, structural transformation model setting with policy distortions. Our findings suggest that the economic underdevelopment of Thailand, when compared with the Republic of Korea, lies in a tendency toward relative labor productivity slowdowns resulting from both direct and indirect policy distortions in the agriculture sector. The agriculture sector has consistently been overlooked by the government in favor of the infant industrial sector for many decades. Moreover, as the agriculture sector accounts for a relatively considerable share of employment, the magnitude of the negative impact from policy distortions is amplified, inducing a delay in Thailand’s structural transformation. Keywords: comparative economic development; structural transformation; Thai economy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:adrxxx:v:40:y:2023:i:01:n:s0116110523500087 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1142/S0116110523500087 Access Statistics for this article Asian Development Review (ADR) is currently edited by Tetsushi Sonobe More articles in Asian Development Review (ADR) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. |
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