What are Thailand’s prospects of escaping the middle-income trap and making the leap to high-income economy by the 2037 target set in the National Strategy published in 2018 by the Thai government? In this paper, using the World Bank’s Long-Term Growth Model, I simulate different long-term growth scenarios by exploring various policy reforms for Thailand to avoid being trapped as UMIC. I find that in the baseline scenario in which current trends continue, Thailand will likely remain a UMIC well passed 2037, and even passed 2050. However, a comprehensive reform agenda that includes a significant increase in aggregate investment into the 90th percentile of the UMICs’ distribution, a boost in productivity growth path to outperform that of Korea (between 1985 and 2014), an improvement in human capital growth, an increase in female labor participation and an improvement of public capital efficiency, could propel Thailand’ economy into high-income status by 2041.
