Effects of Foreign Direct Investment, Trade Openness, and Human Capital Development on the Economic Growth of Thailand

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, emerging East Asian countries have increasingly integrated with the global economy. Thailand is regarded as an exemplar of achieving remarkable economic growth owing to the outward-oriented industrialisation strategy. This study examines the effects of Thailand's outward-oriented industrialisation strategy, which comprises foreign direct investment inflows and trade openness on its economic growth. Further, the analysis sheds light on the absorption capacity of the economy by focusing on human capital development in particular. The empirical analysis, which applies the autoregressive distributed lag approach, reveals that, from 2000 to 2017, trade openness and human capital development contributed positively to Thailand's GDP growth in the long run, while FDI inflows contributed negatively.