Abstract
The problem of informal debt has been deeply rooted in Thai society and with increased severity over the past two decades. The goal of this paper is to examine the problem, investigate the cause and explore the current state of the problem in effort to design a prevention system and offer a solution. Qualitative and quantitative methods were implemented based on 4,868 questionnaires, 20 focus groups interviews and 82 in-depth interviews from 12 provinces throughout Thailand. The research indicates that in Thai society, the informal debt is deeply intertwined with the formal debt. The informal debt causes by both internal and external factors. Whereas the internal factor is the individual behaviors, the external factors are the negative imbalance of income and expenses, and the emergency financial need irrespective of the exorbitantly high interest rates charged on informal debt of 5–20% per month. Living in poverty and working in informal economic sector without adequate social welfare keep people besieged within informal debt cycle endlessly. Thus, informal debt is both the cause and consequence of the social and economic inequality. Moreover, this article will give the reflection on infrastructures which are barriers to the systematic solution of the informal debt problem.
อ่านเพิ่มเติมได้ที่ : https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/asp/asl/2017/00000023/00000001/art00121?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf