What Causes Structural Change? An Analysis for Thailand

Many Southeast Asian countries have recently or are currently undergoing rapid structural change. Structural change is the contraction of agriculture as a share of aggregate economic output and the corresponding expansion of the combined shares of industry and services.

The webinar will look into the economic causes of the rapid structural change happening in Thailand over recent decades. It will look into the relative explanatory power of five potential contributors to structural change, suggested by simple economic theory, but using data for Thailand: (a) differential growth rates of aggregate supplies of physical capital, labor, and land; (b) differential growth rates of total factor productivity between sectors; (c) changes in rates of trade protection across sectors; (d) changes in relative international prices; and (e) differences in expenditure elasticities of demand between final consumer goods (Engel’s law). The webinar will also examine what this means for Thailand’s future economic prospects and implications for policy.

The webinar will feature Peter Warr, the John Crawford professor of agricultural economics, emeritus, at the Australian National University. He studied at the University of Sydney, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University, where he received his PhD in applied economics. His current research is on the relationship between economic policy and poverty incidence in Southeast Asia. He is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and is a distinguished fellow and past president of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.