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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

Using weighted-average prices in Table 3 for private farm land and 'built'
land respectively we can proceed to estimate the total value of private land in each
category. Table 4 shows the resulting total area, price and value of private land.

The calculation for 1960 in this table relies on statistics of the area and valuation
of newly mortgaged farm land, orchards and 'sites' published in the Statistical
Yearbook of Thailand for 1964, and assumes that the figures for mortgage
valuations – averaging 800 Baht per rai for farm land and orchards and 60,000
Baht per rai for 'sites' – give a reasonable indication of prices of registered private
land at that time.

Table 4 implies that the total value of private land has increased from
around 200 billion Baht in 1960 to over 30 trillion Baht in 2018. The value of
farm land has increased the most both because farms account for a larger share
of the total registered area and because price per rai of 'vacant' land has
increased more spectacularly than the price of built land ('sites'). Allowing for
inflation of prices in general, the average price of registered farm land in 1960
was 5,000-10,000 Baht per rai in today's money while according to the statistics
of mortgage valuations the price of built land was as much as 500,000 Baht
or more per rai in today's money.

Table 4 Area, average price and value of private land, 1960 and 2018

area price value

land use million rai million Baht / rai trillion Baht

1960 2018 1960 2018 1960 2018

Farm 20.4 113.6 0.001 0.165 0.02 18.79
Built 3.0 11.4 0.060 1.277 0.18 14.55

waste, quarries, water 3.6 0.001 0.331 0.00 1.19

Total 23.4 128.6 0.009 0.268 0.20 34.53

Sources: Tables 2 and 3 and author's calculations of average price from Statistical Yearbook of
Thailand (1965) table 96.

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Francis Cripps

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