Tauyoon Kim: This paper shows various relationships among monthly economic data on Thailand. For example, the author shows changes in trends of exports and manufacturing output index, changes in business confidence, changes in expenditure and tax revenue, short-run impact of fiscal policy by applying vector autoregression (VAR) using manufacturing production index, exports, public expenditure, public revenue, consumer price index, changes in business sentiment index, and so on.
Based on the author's analysis using these data, he states that (1) Thailand's fiscal policy can be effective to stabilize short-term fluctuations of output and maintain price stability if there is a specific rule on fiscal policy; (2) sufficient fiscal space would be good for implementing fiscal expansionary policy after the global recession; (3) capital expenditure is more important than current spending for long-term growth; (4) an automatic fiscal stabilizer is necessary when formulating countercyclical fiscal policy measures; and (5) the Thai government's...