IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2404.09629.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quantifying fair income distribution in Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Thitithep Sitthiyot
  • Kanyarat Holasut

Abstract

Given a vast concern about high income inequality in Thailand as opposed to empirical findings around the world showing people's preference for fair income inequality over unfair income equality, it is therefore important to examine whether inequality in income distribution in Thailand over the past three decades is fair, and what fair inequality in income distribution in Thailand should be. To quantitatively measure fair income distribution, this study employs the fairness benchmarks that are derived from the distributions of athletes' salaries in professional sports which satisfy the concepts of distributive justice and procedural justice, the no-envy principle of fair allocation, and the general consensus or the international norm criterion of a meaningful benchmark. By using the data on quintile income shares and the income Gini index of Thailand from the National Social and Economic Development Council, this study finds that, throughout the period from 1988 to 2021, the Thai income earners in the bottom 20%, the second 20%, and the top 20% receive income shares more than the fair shares whereas those in the third 20% and the fourth 20% receive income shares less than the fair shares. Provided that there are infinite combinations of quintile income shares that can have the same value of income Gini index but only one of them is regarded as fair, this study demonstrates the use of fairness benchmarks as a practical guideline for designing policies with an aim to achieve fair income distribution in Thailand. Moreover, a comparative analysis is conducted by employing the method for estimating optimal (fair) income distribution representing feasible income equality in order to provide an alternative recommendation on what optimal (fair) income distribution characterizing feasible income equality in Thailand should be.

Suggested Citation

  • Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2024. "Quantifying fair income distribution in Thailand," Papers 2404.09629, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.09629
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.09629
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daewoo Lee & Chae Young Chang & Hyunkang Hur, 2020. "Economic performance, income inequality and political trust: new evidence from a cross-national study of 14 Asian countries," Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 66-88, June.
    2. Sitthiyot, Thitithep & Budsaratragoon, Pornanong & Holasut, Kanyarat, 2020. "A scaling perspective on the distribution of executive compensation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 543(C).
    3. Paul Hufe & Ravi Kanbur & Andreas Peichlifo, 2022. "Measuring Unfair Inequality: Reconciling Equality of Opportunity and Freedom from Poverty [Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 3345-3380.
    4. Christina Starmans & Mark Sheskin & Paul Bloom, 2017. "Why people prefer unequal societies," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(4), pages 1-7, April.
    5. Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2022. "A quantitative method for benchmarking fair income distribution," Papers 2202.00917, arXiv.org.
    6. Chakrabarti,Bikas K. & Chakraborti,Anirban & Chakravarty,Satya R. & Chatterjee,Arnab, 2013. "Econophysics of Income and Wealth Distributions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107013445.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric S. M. Protzer, 2019. "Social Mobility Explains Populism, Not Inequality or Culture," CID Working Papers 118a, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    2. Carl Leonard Fischer & Lorenz Meister, 2023. "Economic Determinants of Populism," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 145, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2020. "A simple method for measuring inequality," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, December.
    4. Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2021. "A simple method for estimating the Lorenz curve," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Bohmann, Sandra & Kalleitner, Fabian, 2023. "Subjective Inequity Aversion: Unfair Inequality, Subjective Well-Being, and Preferences for Redistribution," SocArXiv g8arw, Center for Open Science.
    6. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    7. Kiran Sharma & Subhradeep Das & Anirban Chakraborti, 2017. "Global Income Inequality and Savings: A Data Science Perspective," Papers 1801.00253, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2018.
    8. Costas Efthimiou & Adam Wearne, 2016. "Household Income Distribution in the USA," Papers 1602.06234, arXiv.org.
    9. Hutzler, S. & Sommer, C. & Richmond, P., 2016. "On the relationship between income, fertility rates and the state of democracy in society," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 452(C), pages 9-18.
    10. Filip Gesiarz & Jan-Emmanuel De Neve & Tali Sharot, 2020. "The motivational cost of inequality: Opportunity gaps reduce the willingness to work," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    11. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Neil Lee & Cornelius Lipp, 2021. "Golfing with Trump. Social capital, decline, inequality, and the rise of populism in the US," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(3), pages 457-481.
    12. Venkatasubramanian, Venkat & Luo, Yu & Sethuraman, Jay, 2015. "How much inequality in income is fair? A microeconomic game theoretic perspective," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 435(C), pages 120-138.
    13. Malkina, Marina Yu. & Ovchinnikov, Vyacheslav N. & Kholodilin, Konstantin A., 2020. "Институциональные Факторы Политического Доверия В Современной России [Institutional Factors Influencing Political Trust in Modern Russia]," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 77-93.
    14. Campolieti, Michele, 2018. "Heavy-tailed distributions and the distribution of wealth: Evidence from rich lists in Canada, 1999–2017," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 503(C), pages 263-272.
    15. Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2024. "Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariant," Papers 2402.01141, arXiv.org.
    16. Cuenca, Juan J. & Daly, Hannah E. & Hayes, Barry P., 2023. "Sharing the grid: The key to equitable access for small-scale energy generation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    17. Kerim Eser Afc{s}ar & Mehmet Ozyi~git & Yusuf Yuksel & Umit Ak{i}nc{i}, 2021. "Testing the Goodwin Growth Cycles with Econophysics Approach in 2002-2019 Period in Turkey," Papers 2106.02546, arXiv.org.
    18. Maia, Adriano & Matsushita, Raul & Demarcus, Antonio & Da Silva, Sergio, 2023. "Scalability in a two-class interoccupational earnings distribution model," SocArXiv 23brg, Center for Open Science.
    19. repec:ces:ifofor:v:19:y:2018:i:2:p:26-34 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Alexander W Cappelen & Johanna Mollerstrom & Bjørn-Atle Reme & Bertil Tungodden, 2022. "A Meritocratic Origin of Egalitarian Behaviour," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2101-2117.
    21. Ion Santra, 2022. "Effect of tax dynamics on linearly growing processes under stochastic resetting: a possible economic model," Papers 2202.13713, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.09629. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.