重振泰国的结构转型：泰国（英）2026

Reinvigorating Thailand’s Armita Behboodi and Seunghwan Kim SIP/2026/012 IMF Selected Issues Papers are prepared by IMF staff asbackground documentation for periodic consultations withmember countries.It is based on the information available at 2026FEB IMF Selected Issues PaperAsia and Pacific Department Reinvigorating Thailand’s Structural Transformation, ThailandPrepared by Armita Behboodi and Seunghwan Kim Authorized for distribution by Peter Breuer IMF Selected Issues Papersare prepared by IMF staff as background documentation for periodicconsultations with member countries.It is based on the information available at the time it was ABSTRACT:This paper reviews Thailand’s progress in structural transformation and its recent slowdown. Itexamines the empirical drivers of structural transformation and quantifies their contributions, with the objective RECOMMENDED CITATION:Behboodi, A. and Kim, S (2026). Reinvigorating Thailand’s StructuralTransformation, IMF Selected Issues Paper, Asia and Pacific Department, SIP/2026/012. Washington, D.C.: SELECTED ISSUES PAPERS Reinvigorating Thailand’s Thailand Prepared by Armita Behboodi and Seunghwan Kim THAILAND SELECTED ISSUES January 26, 2026 ApprovedByAsia and Pacific PreparedbyArmita BehboodiandSeunghwan Kim(all APD). CONTENTS REINVIGORATING THAILAND’S STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION _______________2 A. Background __________________________________________________________________________2B. Assessing Thailand’s Structural Transformation ______________________________________4C. Drivers of Structural Transformation _________________________________________________6D. Understanding the Recent Slowdown________________________________________________8 FIGURES 1. Asian Countries: Income and Sectoral Employment Shares___________________________22. Thailand: Sectoral Value-Added, Employment Shares, and Productivity ______________33. Selected Asian Countries: Tracking Structural Transformation________________________5 APPENDIX ___________________________________________________________________________ 13 References____________________________________________________________________________ 15 REINVIGORATING THAILAND’S STRUCTURAL This chapter reviews Thailand’s progress in structural transformation and its recent slowdown. Itexamines the empirical drivers of structural transformation and quantifies their contributions, with the A.Background 1.Structural transformation, the reallocation of labor from lower- to higher-productivitysectors, is a well-documented feature of economic development.1While the pace and patternvary across countries and regions, broad trends have been identified. As economies grow andincomes rise, the share of agricultural employment typically declines, the share of industry increases 2.Thailand has largely followed this trajectory, albeit with notable idiosyncrasies. Theshare of employment in agriculture remains persistently high relative to countries at similar incomelevels. Although on a declining trend, approximately one-third of Thai workers are still employed inagriculture. Consequently, employment in industry and services is relatively low for Thailand’s 3.More generally, there is a notable imbalance between sectoral labor and output sharesin Thailand. Industry and high-productivity services account for the majority of value-added,whereas low-productivity services and agriculture contribute substantially less. However, thedistribution of employment is the reverse: agriculture, though declining over time, continues to THAILAND 4.Although this implies an inefficient labor allocation in Thailand, it also suggestspotential scope for productivity gains. Facilitating the reallocation of workers to higher productivesectors would enhance overall labor productivity, thereby enabling Thailand’s economy to achieve B.Assessing Thailand’s Structural Transformation Measuring Structural Transformation 5.Following IMF (2013) and Klyuev (2015), the covariance between sectoral employmentshare and labor productivity is calculated to quantify structural transformation. Rather thanfocusing on individual sectors, this indicator provides a snapshot of the overall efficiency of labor Formally, the covariance term is defined as: wheresiis the employment share of sectori,piis the sector’s labor productivity (i.e., value-addedper worker), andnis the number of sectors. Intuitively, the covariance is positive when more productive sectors employ a larger share of labor, and negative when less productive sectorsemploy a larger share of labor. Thus, it serves as a measure of the efficiency of labor allocationacross all sectors.The term can be simplified as: 𝑖𝑖where𝑃𝑃is aggregate labor productivity and𝑃𝑃¯ shows that the overall efficiency of sectoral labor allocation (covariance) can be expressed as the Evolution of the Covariance Term 6.The evolution of the covariance term demonstrates progress in structural transformation. Followin