Decentralization in Thailand occurred hastily and remains relatively untested after the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution. The decentralization act of 1999 mandated the government to transfer revenue to LAOs, reshaping local fiscal structures. The government has successfully provided revenue to local governments as required by providing large share of intergovernmental revenue transfer in form of tax sharing and grants transfer. A consequence of this, however, is that intergovernmental transfer of revenue has led to lower local fiscal accountability. The tasks that need consideration for continuing fiscal decentralizing in Thailand are: clarifying expenditure assignment for each level of LAOs since there is a two-tier system of LAOs administration; encouraging efficient revenue generation in the existing revenue structure including designing proper intergovernmental revenue transfer formula which would reflect benefit and cost of local public service to enhance accountability of local people toward each level of LAOs. Furthermore, decentralization in Thailand needs to promote participation from local people to understand role of LAOs under the new paradigm of public service delivery where the people must take a proactive role in decision making that concerns their welfare and local affairs.

The use of credit cards has been popular in Thailand for several decades. As its popularity increases, policymakers and the public have expressed concerns over the credit card debt. With the panel dataset from the National Credit Bureau, this study is able to explore whether Thai credit card consumers, on average, have self-control in terms of credit card utilization rate. Under the theoretical framework of Life Cycle Hypothesis and the theory of self-control in behavioral economics, the effects of demographic variables, life stages, time of the year and the economic outlook are investigated in this study. From the Panel Random-Effects Tobit regression, the main results indicate that Thai credit card consumers statistically have partial self-control. However, they begin to lose self-control when they (i) have too many credit cards, (ii) fall into the ‘illusion of income’, (iii) have any additional type(s) of debt, (iv) spend in December and (v) become optimistic towards the economy in the future. To alleviate the loss of self-control in the short run, policymakers are advised to ‘build income walls’ and lock ‘one credit limit per one card issuer’ for all card holders. In the long run, self-control can be achieved through an appropriate financial habit formation with the aid of financial technology.

The use of credit cards has been popular in Thailand for several decades. As its popularity increases, policymakers and the public have expressed concerns over the credit card debt. With the panel dataset from the National Credit Bureau, this study is able to explore whether Thai credit card consumers, on average, have self-control in terms of credit card utilization rate. Under the theoretical framework of Life Cycle Hypothesis and the theory of self-control in behavioral economics, the effects of demographic variables, life stages, time of the year and the economic outlook are investigated in this study. From the Panel Random-Effects Tobit regression, the main results indicate that Thai credit card consumers statistically have partial self-control. However, they begin to lose self-control when they (i) have too many credit cards, (ii) fall into the ‘illusion of income’, (iii) have any additional type(s) of debt, (iv) spend in December and (v) become optimistic towards the economy in the future. To alleviate the loss of self-control in the short run, policymakers are advised to ‘build income walls’ and lock ‘one credit limit per one card issuer’ for all card holders. In the long run, self-control can be achieved through an appropriate financial habit formation with the aid of financial technology.

The election of Donald Trump came as a surprise to the vast majority of political scientists, election forecasters, and senior political office holders, of both political parties. On top of that, then candidate Trump ran a decidedly unconventional political campaign. He spoke in broad outlines about what he was for, but gave very few specifics about what he would actually do. Few republicans sought to emulate Trump, and thus almost all other Republicans running for office ran on more traditional republican themes. President Trump thus has become the face of the Republican party, but he is only one man in the U.S. Governmental system. The most important one, yes, but one who still has limited powers to achieve any policy goals without working in concert with republican congressional majorities, or through the vast federal bureaucracy he now at least nominally heads. This paper seeks to detail out the relationships and constraints that are at play in the Donald Trump Presidency, to attempt to see what impact on economic policy, and through that policy what impact on the real economy, has occurred, and will continue as President Trump’s enters his second year in office.