Modelling the overall impacts of COVID-19 on the Thai economy

Given that estimating the comprehensive and precise impacts of the COVID-19 crisis is challenging, this paper aims to quantify the overall impacts of the COVID-19 on Thai economy both at the macroeconomic and household levels. Our finding indicates that if government supports are not implemented, the country's GDP could fall by 13.66 percent-the most important transmission channels of this severe impact coming from inbound and domestic tourism demand shocks. The pandemic has also significantly increased the level of poverty in Thailand. And those people facing the greatest risk of falling into poverty tend to be those living in urban areas, especially in metropolitan Bangkok, as well as those whose head of household is working in the tourism sector. In exploring the effectiveness of the mitigation measures implemented by the Thai government, our findings also show that such mitigation measures could successfully help lower the numbers of poor and almost poor people to below those of the Pre-COVID-19 era.