Narrow Results

Food safety concerns have become increasingly important challenge for agricultural trade. Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are often considered as major non-tariff trade barriers, which have surged rapidly over the recent decade. This study systematically investigates the impact of China’s SPS measures on Thai fruit exports. The panel dataset is constructed with 17 Thai fruit items for the sample period 2000–2018. Gravity equations are estimated to quantify the trade effects of SPS measures on the value of fruit exports from Thailand to China. The results from the sectoral analysis reveal that the restrictiveness of SPS measures has a positive and substantial effect on export volumes. This suggests that non-arbitrary and informative SPS requirements imposed by a large importing country would help facilitate the agricultural trade.

This study examines the relationship between global value chain (GVC) participation and workers’ wages and the disparities in wage benefits from GVC participation. It employs a pseudo-panel approach to treat endogeneity biases, utilizing pseudo-panel data constructed from the Thai Labour Force Survey, 1995–2011. The results show that GVC participation, on average, induces higher hourly wages through forward and backward linkages. Although forward linkages inclusively and positively affect workers’ wages, the wage benefits of backward linkages accrue to particular demographic groups. Therefore, government policies must be designed to promote GVC participation, particularly forward linkages, and support disadvantaged demographic groups facing disproportionate wage effects.

The residential sector in Thailand has been a fast-growing energy consumption sector since 1995 at a rate of 6% per year. This sector makes a significant contribution to Thailand’s rising electricity demand especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study projects Thailand’s residential electricity consumption characteristics and the factors affecting the growth of electricity consumption using a system dynamics (SD) modeling approach to forecast long-term electricity consumption in Thailand. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown can be seen as a forced social experiment, with the findings demonstrating how to use resources under particular circumstances. Four key factors affecting the electricity demand used in the SD model development include (1) work and study from home, (2) socio-demographic, (3) temperature changing, and (4) rise of GDP. Secondary and primary data, through questionnaire survey method, were used as data input for the model. The simulation results reveal that changing behavior on higher-wattage appliances has huge impacts on overall electricity consumption. The pressure to work and study at home contributes to rises of electricity consumption in the residential sector during and after COVID-19 pandemic. The government and related agencies may use the study results to plan for the electricity supply in the long term.

This article investigates the impact of regional integration on intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and other APEC countries. The study uses pooled cross-sectional and time-series data spanning the period 1980–1999 at a 3-digit Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) level. After accounting for trade imbalance and following Thailand's entry into APEC, intra-industry trade in manufactures between Thailand and countries in Oceania and America decreased, while trade with other Asian countries grew marginally. Results indicate that, in the post APEC era, trade openness stimulated increased intra-industry trade levels with countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia, but decreased trade with countries in America.

Thailand's rapid economic development brought about remarkable wealth and poverty reduction over the past three decades. However, the problem of inequality continues to challenge Thailand's development process. The country has long been known for its concentration of growth in and around Bangkok. Despite that, studies on inequality focusing on geographical dimension have been limited. This paper therefore explores disparities as well as convergence in Gross Provincial Product (GPP)-per-capita over the past two decades. It also investigates growth determinants at provincial level. Finally, the disparities in poverty and the extent to which provincial growth and inequality affect poverty are analyzed.

This study assesses the impact of cash transfers to low-income female Thai students on improving upper secondary school outcomes, as measured by grade point average (GPA) and transition to tertiary education. Utilizing official records from a charity organization providing substantial cash transfers to secondary students and student records from participating schools, we find the transfers have no effect on improving recipients’ GPAs compared to non-recipients. However, the scholarship recipients are 22% more likely to transition to university education than non-recipients and the presence of scholarship recipients in the classroom increases the likelihood of female non-recipients to attend university.

Using unconditional quantile regression and an approach which allows the identification of the individual contributors to the gender wage gap and its over-time change, we study the gender wage differentials over the whole distribution in Thailand from 1991 to 2007. We also propose an extension of the single quantile decomposition to explore the origins of the distributional changes in gender wage differentials over time. A persistent sticky floor effect and declining gender wage gaps over time are observed. Aggregate decompositions using a reweighting approach show that most of the gap and changes in gaps are due to (changing) coefficients effect. Detailed decompositions show that within the (changing) characteristics effect, education contributes to the narrowing of the gap over the whole distribution, and within the coefficients effect age and the constant term are the most influential factors but with opposite effects.

This study investigates technological spillovers of foreign direct investment (FDI) in horizontal, upstream, and downstream industries on domestic manufacturing firms in Thailand, using firm level data from the 2012 industrial census conducted by the National Statistical Office. First, we measure total factor productivity (TFP) and estimate stochastic production frontier to find technical efficiency of firms. Next, we examine impacts of the FDI and other factors on the TFP and technical efficiency of domestic firms. The results provide no evidence on spillover effects of the FDI in horizontal industries on either the TFP or technical efficiency of domestic firms. While the FDI in upstream industries shows negative spillover effects, the FDI in downstream industries reveals positive and significant spillover effects on firms in all industry groups. Firm-specific characteristics such as age, size, availability of imported raw materials, location at industrial estates, and R&D activities all had positive effects on firms’ TFP and technical efficiency in total industries. Although export capability had a positive impact on total factor productivity and technical efficiency of domestic firms in the capital and technology-intensive industries, the effect was insignificant in the labor-intensive ones. The findings imply limited spillover effects of the FDI on domestic firms but highlight favorable effects of the openness policy (affecting availability of imported raw materials and exports), infrastructural investment (available in the industrial estates), and R&D activities. Incentives should be given to the FDI with vertical linkages with domestic input suppliers in order for local firms to gain the most from FDI technology transfers.

This paper applies business cycle accounting methodology to analyze the sources of aggregate fluctuations in Thai economy, especially during the recent severe recessions in 1997–1998 and 2008–2009. This exploration helps researchers uncover possible shocks and frictions that drive business cycle in a small and open economy within a minimal model set-up. Under this methodology, a fluctuation in aggregate output can be accounted for by exogenous time-varying wedges, namely efficiency wedge, investment wedge, labor wedge, government wedge, etc. This study found that the efficiency wedge is essential in accounting for aggregate output, consumption and investment fluctuation, while the bond wedge, which only present in an open economy setting, is a prime factor in accounting for movement in current accounts. I conducted counterfactual experiments to see what accounts for the output drop during recent recessions. I find that the efficiency wedge played a key role in recent recessions in Thailand, while the investment wedge was accounted for slow economic recovery after the recessions.

We investigate the factors that influence adoption of competition law using a panel of countries from 1970 to 2015. We find that in addition to development level, trading arrangements and peer pressure have also influenced adoption. The spread of competition laws adopted from Western precedents left a question regarding the extent they have been tailored to the diverse circumstances of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries. We document the nature, structure, conduct and scope of competition laws by comparing and contrasting the experience of the Philippines and Thailand. Our descriptive analysis reveals that the force and influence of the law are not entirely dependent on early adoption.

The countercyclical pattern of saving in Thailand in the 1990s and 2000s raised questions about household saving behaviors in the country. Using constructed pseudo-panel data sets from the Thai Household Socioeconomic Surveys (SESs) from 1992 to 2011, this paper estimates the intensity of the precautionary saving motive, measured by the coefficient of relative prudence of households in Thailand. By using a dynamic pseudo-panel approach to address concerns with regard to individual heterogeneity causing bias in estimation, the estimated relative prudence of Thai households is around 2, which shows a low precautionary saving motive among these households compared to other countries. Estimates based on disaggregation by demographic characteristics show that as a result of the government-assistance policy, older cohorts and those who live in the rural areas show lower prudence.

This study investigates the individual researcher's perceived environment as a pre-condition of entrepreneurship within the university. Our objective is to identify the micro-level antecedents that shape a university researcher's decision about whether to embark on an entrepreneurial venture. We conducted a series of both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial case studies through in-depth interviews with six university researchers. The comparative case data generated inclusive descriptions of the social conditions surrounding the researchers and their individual characteristics as criteria for explaining their decisions on whether to become entrepreneurs. Our findings add to the macro-perspectives typically discussed, and advance knowledge of the entrepreneurial university by incorporating the individual's perceived environment as a micro-level condition for academic entrepreneurship. Drawing on the context of Thailand's emerging economy, in which social inequality exists alongside growth, our findings shed light on the university researcher's entrepreneurial role as a leader for social change through the commercialisation of science and technology research.

The case provides background to the retail industry as well as excerpts from specialist reports forecasting the evolution of the retail industry in Thailand. The operating and financial data, covering a period of six years, of two companies in the retail industry in Thailand are also given. This case enables students to carry out computations and analyses to make comparisons of the financial performance of the two companies: Big C and Siam Makro Public Limited. Based on the comparisons of the financial performance of two companies within the same industry, students can draw conclustions with regard to the differences in the strategies of the two companies and how these differences affect their performances.

Australian Hospitals to Recycle Used Equipment.

Imitators of Foreign Patent Medicine to Pay US$1 Billion.

Foreigners Allowed to Sit for Medical Practitioners Exam.

Japan Mulls Prison Terms for Food Mislabeling.

Stiffer Law for Sale of Health Products.

Thailand Examines Low-cost Health Scheme.

Australia Commences Drought Resistant Rice Research.

International Congress of Genetics in Australia.

Unidentified Worm-Like Cysts Found in Brain Stem.

China Sets Up Sperm Banks.

New Development of CAS.

Voyager Dayang Yihao Sets Sail for Oceanic Exploration.

Indian Government to Fight Spurious Drugs.

GEAC Blocks Commercial Bt Cotton.

Development of New Drugs Hampers the Production of Old Ones.

Japanese Government to Provide Financial Aid for Fertility Treatment.

SARS May Incur US$3 Billion Exports Loss.

India Supports Public-Private Partnerships.

ICRISAT Promotes Transgenic Technology.

New Policy and Facility for GMO Commercialization.

Thailand Allows GMOs Open-Field Trials.

Global Outlook for Agricultural Biotech.

Thailand Provides Low-Cost Antiretroviral Drugs to AIDS Patients.

World Stem Cell Bank to Open in Seoul.

India Sets Up New Nanotech Center.

Chinese Experts Detect HIV Virus in AIDS Patient’s Eye.

Invitrogen Opens New Facility in Australia.

Outbreak of Bird Flu Confirmed in Siberia.

Monsanto to Shift GM business from Thailand to Other Asian Countries.

Opening Of Agribiosciences Facility In Australia.

ASEAN Economic Community 2015: Opportunities for Trade and Investment in Thailand's Biotechnology Sector.

Advancing Thailand's Rice Agriculture through Molecular Breeding.

Boosting Thailand's Food and Feed Industry: The Food and Feed Innovation Center.

Building Manpower Capacity and Capabilities for Thailand and ASEAN.

Pursuing Immunopathophysiology Research to Support Typhus Vaccine Developement.

Toxicity of Engineered Nanomaterials.

2013 – A Year of Access, Convergence and Technology.

Cancer Targeting Nanomedicine: An Opportunity for Drug Development in Asia with Emphasis on Taiwan.

ASEAN Economic Community 2015: Opportunities for Trade and Investment in Thailand's Biotechnology Sector.

Quality Issues in Pharmaceuticals: An Overview into Root Cause Investigations.

Hospitals' Community Benefits: A Measure of Social Responsibility in Health Care.

Journey to the East: The growing Role of Asian Headquarters for Multinational Life Sciences Companies.

Therapy for Hippocampus Injury: Can Neural Stem Cells Help?

Nanject: Drug Delivery Cancer Cells Detection.

Science Communication: Singapore Science Centre Style.