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Abstract:
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The present study aims to investigate the relationship between lending volume of Thai commercial banks and economic growth of Thailand based on panel data of 76 provinces in Thailand covering 10 years’ period from 2004 to 2013. An autocorrelation test was performed on these dynamic panel data and the relationship between lending volume and economic growth was determined by GMM estimation. In this study, Gross Provincial Product : GPP was used as the proxy of economic growth.
The findings from the test in the case containing inflation rate variable (8 years’ panel data) revealed three variables that are statistically significant at 0.01 level including (1) provincial lending volume of commercial banks, (2) number of business operators with commercial registration, and (3) provincial inflation rate while the other two variables are not statistically significant including (4) government budget allocated to the province, and (5) provincial unemployment rate. In the case not containing inflation rate variable (10 years’ panel data), the test indicated that all four variables are statistically significant at 0.01 level including (1) provincial lending volume of commercial banks, (2) government budget allocated to the province, (3) number of business operators with commercial registration, and (4) provincial unemployment rate. From the GMM estimation, it was found that the lending volume of commercial banks in a province affected the GPP growth of that province in the opposite direction. In the case incorporating the inflation rate variable (8 years’ panel data), the 1 % increase in the proportion of lending volume of commercial banks in the GPP will decrease the growth rate of GPP per capita by 0.13 %. Meanwhile, in the case not including the inflation rate variable (10 years’ panel data), the 1 % increase in lending volume of commercial banks/GPP ratio will decrease the growth rate of GPP per capita by 0.35 %.
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