Thailand's Economic Development and Growth Research Paper

Thailand's Economic Development and Growth - Research Paper Example The research strategy is mainly deductive in nature. The findings from this paper suggest that Thailand has experienced a steady surge in the GDP over the years. There has been positive impact of this growth on the social factors like, level of literacy, conditions of Health and finally, the impact on poverty of the nation. This work has identified two areas of shortcomings for Thailand to improve: it has to focus on the quality of secondary education and reduce the inequality of income between the rich and the poor. Thailand has been a success story and the policies followed by it have been taken as a lesson for other developing economies to follow. Thailand’s incredible growth has put it in the league of the other Asian tigers. This work has found out that the regional pockets of poverty in Thailand needs serious attention from the Government. The government must follow inclusive growth policies to include the poorest of the poor into the formal structure of the labor market in order to reduce the income inequality. Introduction The economic progress witnessed by Thailand is perhaps one of the most interesting economic development literatures that continue to interest economists all over the world. Such in fact has been the pace of growth of Thailand’s economy, that in a recent study by the World Bank, Thailand has been upgraded to the status of a high middle-income economy from a low middle-income one in 2011 (The World Bank, 2013). So, the pertinent question revolves around the wide economic changes during the period of 1980’s to 2000 that had led the economy to achieve the status that it had achieved today. It was observed that during the specified time period, Thailand had experienced an increasing trend of capital inflows by opening up its economy and integrating it with the world economy (Beja, Junvith and Ragusett, n.d.). About two decades ago, Thailand experienced a growth that had become exemplary worldwide and since then, its su ccess story acts as a benchmark for the other economies to follow. However, right at the end of the millennium, the noteworthy rise came to a grinding halt due to the unfavorable conditions of the world economy, better known as the Asian crisis. This paper aims to understand the factors which were responsible for such high rates of growth in Thailand. For the research purpose, the period from 1980’s to 2000 has been considered. The main objective is to evaluate the growth of the economy along with studying the growth of population, in this period. Then, the impact of growth on the level of literacy and conditions of health will be analyzed in details. An inductive methodology is used for the purpose. Based on the findings, the results are drawn accordingly. The paper mainly tries to understand the reasons behind the economic growth admitting the fact that there was indeed a huge growth (Chuenchoksan and Nakornthab, 2008). The most astonishing aspect, inspite of the definite i ncome growth, is the spectacular levels of income inequality.