Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - Case Scenarios, grade: A, , course: Fiscal and Monetary Policy Analysis and Management, language: English, abstract: This paper attempts to test the validity of public welfare spending theories (compensation theory, system theory, median voter theory, group theory, Incrementalism and some variants of public choice theory) in the context of Thailand. The study make use of GDP, previous welfare spending, increases in population, tax revenue, openness to trade, democratic government, labour union, trade association, urbanisation and welfare spending as a share of GDP over the period 1982 – 2007. We found strong and positive link between globalisation, GDP, tax revenue, labour union and previous welfare spending with Thailand welfare spending. These increases will invariably call for increased access to education, health care systems and other related welfare spending which means, the revenue base has to be increased through tax. We therefore recommend Thai Government to undertake reform in the tax system to broaden the tax net. Also, land and property tax systems ought to be reformed as well to extend coverage. We also recommend the stimulation of domestic demand in Thailand to reduce the over reliance on the international market which exposes countries to high end risks and uncertainties. The falling population growth in Thailand could also spell a doom to Thai’s labour supply. Thailand currently relies on immigrant workers from neigbouring countries like Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Burma. As the economic conditions in these countries improve, these immigrant workers might return. This will create a shortage in the supply needs to cater for the ever increasing demand propelled by the continuous industralisation of the Thai economy. Policy decision makers should factor this in their subsequent decision to mitigate this effect in the near future.

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - Case Scenarios, printed single-sided, grade: "none," - (National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok - Graduate School of Public Administration), course: PhD, language: English, abstract: Abstract: To reduce inequality in income distribution and reduce the poverty social welfare spending in Thailand particularly on education and health services is regarded as one of the effective instruments. Policy makers agree that public subsidies on education and health produce positive externalities and have spill over effect in the society. This research is designed to analyse the effects of public spending of education and health on income distribution which examine the pre-expenditure and post-expenditure income distribution in Thailand. It follows the benefit incidence analysis (BIA) that is a method of computing the distribution of public expenditure across different demographic groups, such as women and men. The procedure involves allocating per unit public subsidies (for example, expenditure per student for the education sector) according to individual utilization rates of public services. This paper aims at examine who are the real beneficiaries from the government expenditure. The study uses the quantitative method where data are used of 2010. From the benefit incidence analysis on the public expenditure on education it seems that education system is pro-poor and health care system are not pro-poor rather pro-rich. The poor people can be benefited more from the primary and secondary education and less benefited from the tertiary education. However, overall expenditure on education is favourable to the poor which proves from the income share of household. In this perspective, The Thai government should emphasize on higher education for poor by providing special loan created only for them and universities should also be adopted the policy so that poor income class people can access the opportunity.

This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.

Addressing the poverty and distributional impacts of carbon pricing reforms is critical for the success of ambitious actions in the fight against climate change. This paper uses a simple framework to systematically review the channels through which carbon pricing can potentially affect poverty and inequality. It finds that the channels differ in important ways along several dimensions. The paper also identifies several key gaps in the current literature and discusses some considerations on how policy designs could take into account the attributes of the channels in mitigating the impacts of carbon pricing reforms on households.

The Fund has recognized in recent years that one cannot separate issues of economic growth and stability on one hand and equality on the other. Indeed, there is a strong case for considering inequality and an inability to sustain economic growth as two sides of the same coin. Central to the Fund’s mandate is providing advice that will enable members’ economies to grow on a sustained basis. But the Fund has rightly been cautious about recommending the use of redistributive policies given that such policies may themselves undercut economic efficiency and the prospects for sustained growth (the so-called “leaky bucket” hypothesis written about by the famous Yale economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s). This SDN follows up the previous SDN on inequality and growth by focusing on the role of redistribution. It finds that, from the perspective of the best available macroeconomic data, there is not a lot of evidence that redistribution has in fact undercut economic growth (except in extreme cases). One should be careful not to assume therefore—as Okun and others have—that there is a big tradeoff between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support such a conclusion.

This paper demonstrates that high and rising corruption increases income inequality and poverty by reducing economic growth, the progressivity of the tax system, the level and effectiveness of social spending, and the formation of human capital, and by perpetuating an unequal distribution of asset ownership and unequal access to education. These findings hold for countries with different growth experiences, at different stages of development, and using various indices of corruption. An important implication of these results is that policies that reduce corruption will also lower income inequality and poverty.

Using data from several countries, including Cote d'Ivoire, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Thailand, this book analyzes household survey data from developing countries and illustrates how such data can be used to cast light on a range of short-term and long-term policy issues.