Thai export-oriented growth performance and industrial development

Kesorn Chantarapootirat, Fordham University

Abstract

Thailand's exports have been growing rapidly since the government has switched its industrial development strategy to export-oriented and employed various measures of export incentives to promote exports. This study attempts to explain Thai export demand growth performance in 1960-1985 and 1972-1985 in terms of own-price, cross-price and income elasticities. The estimation employs ordinary least squares regression technique in both equilibrium and disequilibrium model with lagged volume of exports and lagged world export price. Thailand exports can be explained by low own-price, low cross-price and high income elasticities. This implies that Thailand is able to distinguish its products from those of its competitors due to its traditional forms of monopoly advantages. Thai exports are not relatively good substitutes for the exports of competitors due to natural resource-based goods and it will be in a position to obtain a larger percentage share of those exports. As for the study of Thailand's export supply growth performance of 44 products in 1975 and 1985, there was a significant increase in the total import content in the supply of intermediate inputs and final products of most exports. This is due mainly to the worsening terms of trade and the natural resource base of export. Besides, these exports constitute the above-average value of backward linkages on production and employment. Interestingly enough, the natural resource-based exports have higher value-added than the non-natural resource-based exports.

Subject Area

Economics

Recommended Citation

Chantarapootirat, Kesorn, "Thai export-oriented growth performance and industrial development" (1991). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9137203.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9137203

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