Joint Research(Type Ⅴ）
INDUSTRIALIZATION WITH A WEAK STATE -Thailand’s Development in Historical
Perspective.
Project Leader: BAKER, Cris, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn
University
（Term：2011 - 2012）
- Joint Seminars in 2011 Fiscal Year
- Outline of Joint Research
- This manuscript is a collection of eight papers by Professor Somboon Siriprachai,
who passed away early in his career, during his visit to the Center for
Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University for the JSPS Core University
Program seminar organized by Professor Sugihara. Professor Somboon was
a leading figure in Thai economics, who had especially written critically
on Thai development and industrialization. This is a collection of some
of his major works printed between 1994 and 2004 as well as two unpublished
manuscripts which were conference papers presented in Japan. There is a
preface by Professor Kaoru Sugihara, and an Introduction to the papers
by Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit. The entire volume has been meticulously
edited by the professional and academically superbly informed hands of
Dr. Chris Baker. The manuscript is a critical discussion of Thailand’s
economy as a Newly Industrializing Economy, arguing that this description
is premature, and that the economic policy reforms in the 1980s were insufficient
and too late to solve problems of unbalanced growth and eradication of
poverty in rural areas.
- Purpose of Joint Research
- There are very few books or articles on modern Thai economic history, and
only a very small handful of studies of industrialization. The latest two,
by Doner (2009) and Suehiro (2008), cover some aspects of Thai development
in comparative perspective with East Asian countries. Both authors see
industrialization as a means to lift a country out of poverty, but neither
pays special attention to its impact on inequality. Dr Siriprachai’s collection
of essays is special and timely on several counts.
- First, he takes a very wide-ranging view of industrialization within a
long-run perspective of Thailand’s economic history. Second, he engages
with the voluminous literature on the East Asian economies from a Southeast
Asian perspective. Third, he was a relatively early enthusiast for the
new institutional economics, and endeavored to integrate its perspective
with more conventional approaches. Fourth, even from the early 1990s, he
challenged the World Bank view that Thailand’s was on track to become a
Newly Industrializing Economy and another Asian tiger. He backed his argument
with both theoretical and empirical analyses. Fifth, perhaps more than
any other economist, he highlighted two aspects of the development process
which are at the core of Thailand’s crisis at the present: rent-seeking,
and income inequality. Two of the most powerful essays in the collection
address precisely these two issues.
- Like many Thai social scientists, Dr Siriprachai paid little attention
to publishing outside Thailand. He was an enthusiastic reader who closely
followed the international literature. He devoted most of his time to his
teaching, running his university economics journal, and publishing a string
of papers in Thai (around 40), mostly on empirical issues. In his writing
in English, he drew together the learnings from that empirical work with
the debates in the international literature. His work is well known and
greatly appreciated by the few who attended the conferences where he presented
his English-language papers, but is little known outside that circle. As
a collection, these essays are certainly a contribution to the economic
history and economic analysis of modern Thailand. As he was always intent
on drawing out the “lessons” of the Thai case, these essays will also be
of comparative interest, especially within Southeast Asia, but also beyond.
It will be widely read by scholars not only in Thailand but by anyone interested
in the economics of the region.
▲Top of This Page
|
