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

Until 2001, about 72 percent of public expenditures in Thailand were
concentrated in Bangkok and vicinity, which contained 17 percent of the nation’s
population; and contributed 26 percent to the GDP. This concentration of
3
expenditure in Bangkok was “extreme” compared to similar cities, resulting
in poor provision of public goods and services and human resource development
in other regions. The public expenditures differentials accentuated inequality
between urban and rural area and between regions (World Bank, 2012: Part 2).

The trend turns in the 1990s

From a peak of 0.536 in 1992, the Gini Index has been improving to reach
0.445 in 2015. The trend has been a zigzag, complicated at first by the bubble
economy and 1997 financial crisis, so that only recently has the downward trend
become clear.

Kobsak Phutrakul (2013) has subjected this trend to a sophisticated
statistical analysis. His major finding is that incomes have converged in the
middle range of the pyramid. If the population is divided into percentiles
(1 per cent groups) ranked by income, then those from around 5 to 60 have seen
their incomes grow faster than the average over 1988–2011, while those from
around 60 to 99 have seen their incomes grow slower than the average.

The occupations where incomes have grown faster than the average
include farm owners, tenants and landless workers, as well as general manual
workers (Kobsak, 2013: 35, chart 18). The gap between urban and rural has
narrowed slightly. The regional economies have grown faster than Bangkok,
especially since the post-crisis recovery of the early 2000s, and especially in the
poorest regions of the south and northeast.

Many factors lie behind this convergence. First, the issue of inequality became
part of the national agenda, mentioned in the 10th national plan of 2007–11,
though with little effect on policy (NESDB n.d.: 11. More importantly, through the
mechanisms of parliamentary democracy, politicians have responded to social
demands for better public goods and services. The Thaksin government of 2001–05
introduced a universal health care scheme, several windows of microcredit, and

3 The proportion of GDP in percentages in other regions were: Central, 44; North 9, Northeast 12,
South 10.

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