Social Capital Accumulation and Macroeconomic Growth in Thailand

International and Provincial-level Comparisons

Abstract

A country’s economic activity is influenced by the total amount of “social capital” accumulated within that country. Although there are no statistics that directly measure the amount of social capital when attempting to quantitatively analyse the its impact in Thailand, an internationally comparable index, the Social Capital Index (SCI) developed and published by SolAbility, enable us to understand the relative status of social capital accumulation across the country. Furthermore, understanding which regions in Thailand contribute to which components of social capital accumulation, and which regions need improvement in which components, will lead to more realistic and efficient policy recommendations.
This paper quantitatively evaluates the relationship between SCI and economic development status for Thailand as a whole. In the process, identifies the factors that impede the accumulation of social capital from boosting economic efficiency in Thailand are identified. The findings of this study are as follows. First, Thailand’s social capital accumulation is not particularly high compared to its stage of economic development, but it potentially has a significant opportunity to accelerate its accumulation and improve the economic efficiency. Second, however, there are impeding factors that prevent social capital accumulation from effectively translating into economic efficiency, which include education and vocational training, the fixation of social stratification, and systems that prevent women from fully utilising their abilities.
A regional analysis by generating an index value from the Human Achievement Index (HAI) indicates that the northern and northeastern regions have a high but declining amount of social capital, while other regions are contributing to whole nation’s social capital accumulation. Furthermore, in the northern and northeastern regions, individual members of society have become less interested in their families and communities, and their interest moves towards a smaller social unit.