The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

410 HEVIEWS
Export promotion expansion will be difficult from 1976-1980 as slower
growth in O.E.C.D. markets and quota combine with increasing competition
to limit Thailand's potential for expansion of industrial exports,
but the road back to import substitution appears to be a closed option
in the minds of Thai economic planners.
The final paper "Distribution of Income and Wealth in Thailand"
by Udom Kerdpibule (pp. 279-316) is perhaps the best. Thai "data on
income and wealth are relatively scattered and fragmentary" (p. 283)
and the methodology and the data used show considerable ingenuity in
handling both income and wealth for urban and rural families. The
rural area is very difficult to cover (p. 293) :-
"A vast majority of the Thai population are living in agricultural
household (s), but there is little information on their level of living."
The data assembled is excellent and the presentation balanced, which
means that taxation and education are both recognised as sources of
inequality. The principal conclusions are modest and the institutional
factors are correctly identified. Thailand bas a severe problem of rural/
urban inequalities and a further severe problem of inequality between
rural families (p. 315) :-
"( 1) The mean income of rural families is less than half of the
urban-family income and the differential is getting larger. The
distribution is also more concentrated than that of urban income,
the tendency is also toward a higher degree of inequality."
Thailand and Thailand's economists face many severe difficulties in
the post-Vietnam era. This volume is evidence that the problems are
recognised and are being analysed, but there are few concrete proposals
in this volume and no evidence that the political economy will be quickly
or easily altered to face the challenges of 1976. Thailand's policy-makers
recognise their problems, but find politically acceptable solutions
difficult to devise within the present social and economic structure, but
this volume shows they can adjust to changing conditions.
A11g11s Ho11e
Institute of Commo11wealth Studies,
Oxford