This book reviews the contemporary issues in international monetary and financial economics (such as financial liberalisation, crisis, exchange rate determination, capital control, domestic capital market reform, etc.) in an emerging financial market such as Thailand from a welfare economic p- spective, highlighting the social welfare implications of these issues. This 3 book also suggests a normative social approach (as formalised in the new welfare economics paradigm) (see Islam 2001a,b for a discussion of this ; concept) for analysing and addressing these issues and formulating appr- riate policies. Undertaking the above tasks, the asymmetric information paradigm 3 and other elements of the new welfare economics paradigm are adapted in analysing the international financial issues of Thailand, their causes and economic and social welfare consequences. The last two decades have been a critical period for Thailand’s dev- opment. From the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, the Thai economy performed remarkably well and was a showcase for the world economy. Having achieved a double-digit growth rate for a brief period, Thailand in the late 1980s was regarded as the fastest growing economy in the world by the World Bank and the IMF. With prospects of further rapid economic growth, the Thai government accepted Article VIII of the IMF, which required Thailand to liberalise and deregulate its financial system.

The main purpose of this thesis is to study the role of international trade on the economic development of Thailand, and the main obstacles to the working of the engine of growth, international trade, and to some extent emphasis is given to the related problems of the Thai economic development.

Between 1987 and 1990 Thailand experienced double-digit growth, fed by high capital inflows. This made Thailand one of the first developing countries to recover from the recession of the 1980s. Since 1990 growth and capital inflows have continued at a high level. The book makes a detailed study of the macroeconomic impact of capital inflows during recent years and during an earlier period when growth, and capital inflows, were high, in the late 1970s. It is shown that the results of the recent period are more sustainable than those of the earlier period, due to the differences in the nature of capital inflows, in external conditions, and in economic policies.

Study of economic growth in Greece, Israel, Taiwan, China and Thailand - covers foreign investments, economic policy, economic structures, historical aspects of economic development, etc. References and statistical tables.