The Paris School of Economics Masters in Analysis and Policy in Economics (APE) Income Inequality, Political Instability, and the Thai Democratic Struggle Master Thesis of: Thanasak Jenmana Thesis Supervisors: Referee: Facundo Alvaredo Thomas Piketty September 6, 2018 For every woman and man who has fought against or suered from reducible injustice in Thailand, and all over the world. Abstract This thesis re-examines the dynamics of income inequality in Thailand between 2001 and 2016. The main motivation lies in the lack of information on the richest citizens in household surveys, which can lead to a signicant underestimation of the inequality level and to a false representation of the historical trend. We combined household surveys, scal data, and national accounts to create a more consistent inequality series. Our results indicate that income inequality is much higher than what past surveys have suggested, specically when looking at the reduction in inequality, which turns to be much more conservative. The top 10% income share went from 52.62% of national income in 2001 to 51.49% in 2016, and the bottom 50% share increased from 11.30% to 13.90%. Within the same time frame, the Gini coecient decreased by only 0.04, reaching 0.60 in 2016. These observed dynamics can be put into perspective using recent political conicts in Thailand, where a strong anti-democratic sentiment has been arsing within the middle and upper social classes. The growth incidence curve shows that, the bottom half have been growing faster than the average since 2001, while the middle class has been growing at a rate below the national average. In line with recent works focusing on class conicts through the lens of the preference for democracy, we argue that this phenomenon led to a strong reaction against democracy from the middle class, who had beneted from signicant growth prior to 2001. Using CSES data, it is briey shown that there has been a rise of income and education cleavage in Thai politics from 2001 and on, reecting these patterns. JEL codes: D31, D63 Keywords: Thailand, personal income tax, income inequality, growth, political economy, democratic transitions. Acknowledgments First and foremost, this thesis benetted enormously from the guidance of my thesis advisor, Professor Facundo Alvaredo. I am utterly grateful for his patience and valuable advices, which have contributed to the delivery of this work. A core of this article would not have been realised without the assistance of Krida Kritiyachotipakorn of the Revenue Department, Ministry of Finance, and Salisa Salasawat in contacting the Revenue Department for the tax tabulations. Regarding the data retrieval, I thank Natthawat Dejthanaprasert and Sirichai Juengudomporn for making the inconvenience of me not being able to return to Thailand less fatal. The advices of Professor Chayanee Chawanote, Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit, and Professor Pan Ananapibut regarding the use of tax data are deeply appreciated. My grasp on the subtle but crucial caveats of the dataset used here were built upon the time they have taken to discuss with me. I sincerely thank Professor Wanwiphang Manachotphong for her kindness in allowing me to use her dataset on the red shirts and yellow shirts. And I am forever indebted to Professor Thorn Pitidol for whom I could have ever wished. His advices and guidance since my undergraduate degree have played an undeniable role in shaping my path today. I also need to thank my friends, Amory Gethin and Esther Raineau, for their constant support and friendship; I simply would not have completed this masters without their presence in times of need. I sincerely thank San Attarangsan and Pitsanupol Sunanand for having been there for me for so many years. I also would like to acknowledge Juliette Perche. I would not have the motivation that I have today if not for our many discussions that have been stimulating my intellectual curiosity since I have rst met her in Bangkok many years ago. My life in Paris would have been impossible without the Franco-Thai scholarship, and I am thankful for this honour that was given to me by the French Embassy of Thailand and the French Government. Lastly, I am indebted to my parents whose help I know I can rely on when I truly had nowhere else to turn. i Contents List of Figures v List of Tables viii 1 Introduction 1 1 Research Questions and Objective . 3 2 An Overview of the Thai development and its Political Economy . 3 3 Thai Income Inequality in the 21st Century . 9 2 Dynamics of Thai Income Inequality 11 1 Past Research on Thai Income Inequality . 11 2 Data & Methodology . 14 3 Income Inequality in Thailand, 2001-2016 . 23 4 Conclusions . 29 5 Implications for Future Research . 29 3 Inequality & the Evolution of Political Conicts in Thailand, 2001 - 2016 31 1 The ‘Middle Class’ and Preference for Democracy . 32 2 Political Polarisation and the Possibility of Class-based Politics . 35 3 Conclusion and Thoughts on the Future of Thai Inequality . 37 References 39 References . 39 A Appendix 43 1 Structure of National Income: Income Approach . 43 2 The Evolution of Income Taxation and Redistributive Policies . 43 3 Income Imputation from Expenditure . 44 4 Scenarios for Combining Distributions from Survey and Tax Data . 48 5 Distribution of scal income, 2001-2016 . 49 6 DINA upgrade . 51 7 Political economy discussions . 54 iii List of Figures 1.1 Thailand’s National Income, 1950-2016 . 4 1.2 GDP by sector, 1951-2016 . 5 1.3 Share of Employment by sector, 1960 - 2016 . 6 2.1 Gini coecient estimates of Thai income inequality, 1960-1994 . 12 2.2 Thai population and share of taxpayers . 15 2.3 Structure of National Income, 1990 - 2016 . 17 2.4 Gap of household income from survey and tax data to the national income . 17 2.5 Scenarios for joining the 2015 survey and tax data (p1 = 80; p2 = 90) . 21 2.6 Income inequality in Thailand, 2001-2016: national income series . 25 2.7 Gini coecients for the distribution of national income, 2001-2016 . 26 2.8 Total cumulated real growth by percentile, 2001-2016 — scaled by population 27 2.9 Total cumulated real growth by percentile, 2001-2016 — scaled by share of growth captured . 28 3.1 1988 - 2016 poverty rate (national poverty line) . 31 3.2 Total cumulated real growth by percentile, 2001-2006 — scaled by population 34 3.3 Total cumulated real growth by percentile, 2001-2006 — scaled by share of growth captured . 34 3.4 Social cleavages in Thailand . 36 3.5 Total cumulated real growth by percentile, 2015-2016 — scaled by population 38 A.1 Income and consumption by percentile from 2013 SES data . 45 A.2 Income-consumption ratios from SES data . 45 A.3 Theoretical Income-consumption ratios from SES data . 46 A.4 Comparing tax and survey distribution at the top . 48 A.5 Ratio between income estimated using tax and survey data . 49 A.6 Bottom 50% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 49 A.7 Top 10% and middle 40% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 50 A.8 Top 1% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 50 A.9 Top 0.1% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 50 A.10Top 0.01% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 51 A.11Top 0.001% income share in Thailand: 2001-2016 . 51 A.12Top 10%, Middle 40%, and Bottom 50% income share in Thailand, 2001-2016 — scal vs. national income series . 53 A.13Top 10%, Middle 40%, and Bottom 50% income share in Thailand, 2001-2016 — Dierence between scal vs. national income series . 53 v List of Figures A.14Poverty rate: 1988-2016 . 54 A.15Electoral geography: 2001, 2005, and 2011 election. 57 vi List of Tables 2.1 Simple tabulation of taxpayers and income by brackets, 2014-2016 . 15 2.2 Income share by groups: interpolation from survey data . 20 2.3 Choice of p2 ....................................... 21 2.4 Thai income inequality: combining scal and survey data . 24 2.5 Thresholds, averages, and scal income shares in 2016 Thailand . 24 2.6 Thresholds, averages, and national income shares in Thailand, 2016 . 26 2.7 Cumulated income growth by income groups and periods in Thailand . 28 A.1 Structure of National Income: Income Approach . 43 A.2 Evolution of PIT Scheme . 44 A.3 Income-consumption ratios — Strategy A0-A2 . 47 A.4 Decomposing national income and comparing to tax and survey data . 52 viii 1 Introduction Thailand, alongside many other developing countries, is still undergoing a long episode of political instability and democratic struggle. Since the 1932 Siamese revolution, which transitioned the country from absolute monarchy to democratic rule under constitutional monarchy, 12 military coups d’etat´ were successful — six of them aer 1970.1 Yet, Thailand was one of the fastest growing economies in Asia from the 1970s up until the Asian Financial Crisis despite having constant political conicts and decades of non-democratic governments. As a result, its political economic relations and how it conditions economic growth begs for investigations into the complex interrelations between economic development, political inequality, and economic inequality. The focus of this work is fundamentally driven by the moral relevance of inequality. Apart from a very few developed economies, highly unequal income and wealth distributions — amongst other types of inequality measures —can be observed today: and not only as itself, but also as reected either explicitly or implicitly in other social dimensions such as access to opportunities, democratic stability, political representation, labour market conditions, or health outcomes. If poverty is ”not having the capability to realise one’s full potential as a human being”, as Sen (1999) have put, the dynamics of inequality reveals the extent to which dierent groups of people in the society are being precluded from that realisation.