SOUTHEAST ASIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS

Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Thailand’s Real Estate Market

Monthinee Teeramungcalanon — 2026-03-26

Over the past decades, foreign direct investment has contributed positively to Thailand’s economic growth, where a significant part of the investments made are allocated to the real estate sector. Thailand’s real estate market has demonstrated enduring growth, witnessed by a remarkable surge from international buyers. The increase in tourism and attractive investment opportunities has turned Thailand into a preferred destination for foreign investment, which leads to an increase in foreign demand for accommodation. This study aims to explore the key factors that affected foreign direct investment in real estate activities in Thailand from 2008 to 2022 using the time series regression method. The estimation results reveal that market size GDP, condominium price, interest rates, and exchange rates are significant determinants of foreign direct investment into Thailand’s real estate activities, while the number of tourists and labor wages have no impact. Therefore, Thailand should maintain a favorable investment environment, monitor the real estate market to stabilize house prices, control appropriate macroeconomic policies, and strengthen effective regulation of financial institutions and markets to attract more foreign direct investment into the real estate sector.

Renewable Energy Resilience: The Impact of Economic Policy in South Asia

Emon Kalyan Chowdhury — 2026-03-26

This study examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on renewable energy adoption in South Asia, a region at the crossroads of rapid economic growth and environmental challenges. Using panel data from 2000 to 2023 and advanced econometric methods, the findings reveal that while EPU can discourage short-term renewable energy investment, it may encourage long-term shifts as firms adapt to uncertainty. Institutional quality, trade openness, and foreign investment emerge as key factors that mitigate the adverse effects of EPU and support renewable energy development. These insights focus on the importance of stable policies and robust institutional frameworks to foster a sustainable energy transition. By leveraging these findings, South Asian policymakers can chart a path toward a resilient, low-carbon future, ensuring that economic development aligns with environmental sustainability and longterm energy security.

The Role of Price Dispersion on the Inflation Targeting in Thailand

Nipit Wongpunya — 2026-03-26

This paper explores the macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting in Thailand. It uses a closed economy medium-scale New Keynesian model with price dispersion to analyze the Thai monetary policy under inflation targeting. It shows that inflation is more stable, and inflation persistence has fallen after adopting inflation targeting. The Bank of Thailand is more responsive to the deviation of inflation from its target using inflation targeting. Inflation is costly through price dispersion. The larger the inflation targeting rate is set by the Bank of Thailand, the lower the steady state output is from its steady state level, given no trend inflation.

Inequitable Pay and Work Performance: Evidence from Lab Experiments in Thailand

Tanyamat SrungBoonmee — 2026-03-26

While inequitable pay can hurt morale among disadvantaged workers, it is not clear whether it affects work performance. This paper examines how inequitable compensation affects work performance using lab experiments among university students aged mostly between 18 and 22. Results show that compensation disadvantage improves performance but lowers satisfaction when unequal treatment is arbitrary. The lower satisfaction seems to result from the perception of unfairness, and that perception became clearer after subjects experienced unfair treatment. Disadvantaged subjects seem to try to increase their effort to match the outcome of advantaged peers. When unequal treatment is a result of competition, the performance of disadvantaged subjects is not higher than that of the control group. As such, unequal treatment is undesirable from the perspective of worker satisfaction, but is desirable when considering performance. This evidence supports anti-discrimination policies, as firms have an incentive to improve performance under discriminatory practices that undermine social justice and worker well-being.

Impact of Selected Macroeconomic Variables on Household Consumption in Eight ASEAN Countries

Htwe Ko — 2026-03-26

This paper identifies macroeconomic factors alongside income growth that influence changes in household consumption across ASEAN (excluding Lao PDR and Vietnam due to data limitations) from 2010 to 2022. We use a mix-order variable selection using Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) and Bayesian adaptive sampling for variable selection (BASAD) methods to choose the important input variables in explaining household final consumption (HFC). We then employ both cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) and Bayesian dynamic multivariate panel models to examine determinants of household consumption. The mix-order variable selection method reveals output growth in service sectors, population growth, and unemployment rates as important factors among input predictors influencing the changes in HFC, in addition to income growth during the studied periods. The Bayesian dynamic multivariate model shows two main findings: (1) Fixed effects show a positive correlation between income growth and service sector output growth with HFC, while population growth and unemployment rates have a negative nexus with HFC, and (2) time-varying effects of all independent variables are positively correlated with HFC. CS-ARDL model estimation results indicate a positive short-run effect of income growth, population growth, and unemployment, but a negative effect in the long run between income growth and unemployment with HFC. This paper not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the macroeconomic determinants of household consumption in ASEAN countries but also discusses the study’s limitations and directions for future research.

Exploring Livelihood-Related Factors Affecting Gender Inequality Based on Millennium Development Goals and the Effects of COVID-19 in 82 Developing Countries

Seh Young Kim — 2026-03-26

Gender inequality is closely related to livelihoods. Hence, this study adopted four livelihood-related models (empowerment-, education-, health-, and infrastructure-related models) built on 11 factors to test the relationship between these factors and gender inequality in 82 developing countries. The data is extracted from the World Bank database. The fixed-effects estimation was adopted to address country-specific effects in the analyses. The findings showed that all factors affected gender inequality in the macro and regional analyses. The education-related model had the most significant impact in the macro analyses, emphasizing the critical role of education in promoting gender equality. The importance of infrastructure and ensuring equal access to healthcare services was highlighted in the regional analyses.

Multiple Equilibria of Corruption and Biased Technological Progress: State Capture and Rent-Seeking in Thailand Underdevelopment

Up Sira Nukulkit — 2026-03-26

This article analyzes the ongoing problem of corruption’s impact on capital accumulation in Thailand. Economic growth resulting from capital accumulation is influenced by corruption in the form of state capture and rent-seeking, which affect the pattern of technological progress. Growth and income distribution in a wellfunctioning economy are expected to feature neutral technological progress, enhancing efficiency in both capital and labor at the same rate. Neutral technological progress provides balanced returns on production for both sides and positively impacts the overall system. However, empirical evidence suggests that Thailand’s capital accumulation exhibits characteristics of biased technological progress, leading to a decrease in capital/output ratio, the profit rate, and the divergence between wage and labor productivity, and resulting in an imbalanced distribution of income between capital and labor. Capital accumulates in a manner aligned with cumulative causation and low growth, hampering the development of labor and capital productivity. Corruption of rent-seeking and state-capture in Thailand creates extreme inequality and undermines stability in both the market and politics. This study provides a deep analysis of Thailand’s path of capital accumulation that is characterized by biased technological progress in the context of corruption.

Transaction Costs and Stock Market Behavior: Evidence from Thailand

Sasatra Sudsawasd — 2026-03-26

This study empirically examines the relationship between transaction costs, measured by brokerage fees from securities trading, and market activity in the Stock Exchange of Thailand, focusing on trading value, turnover ratio, and the volatility of daily returns. It is the first to analyze the effects of brokerage fees on trading value disaggregated by three types of investors: local institutional investors, foreign investors, and local retail investors. Using monthly trading data from January 2013 to October 2022, the results reveal that higher transaction costs significantly reduce the overall average daily trading value. Local institutional investors are found to be sensitive to changes in brokerage fees over the long run, while foreign and local retail investors exhibit short-run sensitivity. Furthermore, an increase in transaction costs is associated with a reduction in the volatility of daily returns in the stock market over the long run.

The Impact of Monetary Policy on Fiscal Policy Effectiveness During Recession: A Study of Triplet Recessions in Indonesia

Chandra Utama — 2026-03-26

The main objective of this research is to examine how monetary policy contributed to the effectiveness of fiscal policy throughout Indonesia’s triplet recession. The recession brought on by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) from 2008Q2 to 2009Q2, exchange rate volatility (ERC) from 2012Q4 to 2015Q2, and the COVID-19 pandemic from 2019Q4 to 2021Q4 are all included in the triplet recession. Another goal is to examine how the crisis affected the efficacy of fiscal policy. The System Equation Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) is used to estimate using quarterly data from 2005Q3 to 2021Q4. According to the results, fiscal effectiveness significantly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic but not during the GFC or the ERC. The paper also concludes that, unlike during the GFC and ERC, monetary policy significantly preserved the efficacy of fiscal policy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend that, in a crisis, fiscal and monetary policies be closely aligned to support each other. They should be flexible in adjusting the balance between fiscal and monetary policies based on the type of crisis.