Regional and spatial dependence of poverty factors in Thailand, and its use into Bayesian hierarchical regression analysis

TL;DR

This study identifies regional poverty dynamics in Thailand using spatial analysis and Bayesian hierarchical models, proposing inferred regional boundaries that better capture poverty factors for targeted policy interventions.

Contribution

It introduces inferred regional boundaries based on spatial and poverty data, enhancing analysis beyond traditional administrative regions for better policy guidance.

Findings

All variables show positive spatial autocorrelation.

Northern, Northeastern, and Northcentral Thailand need focused poverty alleviation efforts.

Urban centers like Bangkok-Pattaya have higher education and income levels.

Abstract

Poverty is a serious issue that harms humanity progression. The simplest solution is to use one-shirt-size policy to alleviate it. Nevertheless, each region has its unique issues, which require a unique solution to solve them. In the aspect of spatial analysis, neighbor regions can provide useful information to analyze issues of a given region. In this work, we proposed inferred boundaries of regions of Thailand that can explain better the poverty dynamics, instead of the usual government administrative regions. The proposed regions maximize a trade-off between poverty-related features and geographical coherence. We use a spatial analysis together with Moran's cluster algorithms and Bayesian hierarchical regression models, with the potential of assist the implementation of the right policy to alleviate the poverty phenomenon. We found that all variables considered show a positive spatial autocorrelation. The results of analysis illustrate that 1) Northern, Northeastern Thailand, and in less extend Northcentral Thailand are the regions that require more attention in the aspect of poverty issues, 2) Northcentral, Northeastern, Northern and Southern Thailand present dramatically low levels of education, income and amount of savings contrasted with large cities such as Bangkok-Pattaya and Central Thailand, and 3) Bangkok-Pattaya is the only region whose average years of education is above 12 years, which corresponds (approx.) with a complete senior high school.