Jobs, Wages and Napoleon Dynamite: The Hard Data on Thailand’s Economy [Season 4, Episode 36]

It’s an extra-long show this week as Greg interviews Jessica Vechbanyongratana, a professor at the faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University, about the numbers that make up Thailand’s economy. 

Beginning with Thailand’s notable jump up the list of countries with the biggest inequality gap, Jessica explains the methodologies and data that led to the change - although as she mentions, depending on what data you look at during what year, Thailand may not necessarily be any more unequal than a country like the United States.

Next, they tackle the question of the minimum wage and the average monthly income of residents of Bangkok vs other areas of Thailand, with Greg drawing an interesting analogy between that and Napoleon Dynamite (you see, Bangkok - like Napoleon Dynamite - tends to throw a bomb into many predictive models).

The two also cover how teaching is considered a really good job in Thailand, how Jessica’s students are usually overly optimistic about the wages they’ll earn upon graduation, and finish with an addendum - recorded just the other night - on the devastating effect the Coronavirus is having on Thailand.

And don’t miss our patron Thomas’ sweet DJ sets on Twitch!

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