Poverty Reduction Through Long-term Growth: The Thai Experience

Thailand’s impressive long-term rate of economic growth has resulted mainly from accumulation of physical capital. Significant total factor productivity growth can be identified at an aggregate level, explaining as much as one third of the aggregate growth of output. But this TFP growth was due entirely to resource reallocation from low productivity sectors to higher productivity sectors. TFP at the sectoral level has been important only in agriculture. Poverty has declined remarkably over time despite a long-term increase in income inequality. The short-term rate of decline in poverty incidence has been directly related to the rate of economic growth.