TY - JOUR

T1 - Internet use, natural resource extraction and poverty reduction in rural Thailand

AU - Nguyen, Trung Thanh

AU - Nguyen, Thanh Tung

AU - Grote, Ulrike

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the farmers in our study sites in Thailand for their support and cooperation. We appreciate the financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the long-term Thailand-Vietnam Socioeconomic Panel Project (DFG - FOR 756/2) ( www.tvsep.de ). We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.

PY - 2022/6

Y1 - 2022/6

N2 - This study uses the data of 1912 and 1815 rural households surveyed in 2016 and 2017, respectively in three provinces of Thailand to examine the factors affecting the decision of rural households to use the internet and the impacts of internet use on household income and poverty. Results from a probit model show that the decision of rural households to use the internet is positively associated with the education level of the household head, household size, labour share, farmland, and household productive assets, and the number of enterprises with at least nine employees in the village. But it is negatively associated with age of household head and share of male members in household. Results from a heteroscedasticity-based instrumental variable regression show that internet use for productive purposes increases household income, promotes development of non-farm sectors, and reduces the extraction of and reliance on natural resources. However, results from an unconditional quantile regression show that better-off households benefit relatively more from internet use than worse-off households. These findings indicate a positive income effect of internet use for productive purposes but also raise a concern of increasing income inequality among rural populations from internet development.

AB - This study uses the data of 1912 and 1815 rural households surveyed in 2016 and 2017, respectively in three provinces of Thailand to examine the factors affecting the decision of rural households to use the internet and the impacts of internet use on household income and poverty. Results from a probit model show that the decision of rural households to use the internet is positively associated with the education level of the household head, household size, labour share, farmland, and household productive assets, and the number of enterprises with at least nine employees in the village. But it is negatively associated with age of household head and share of male members in household. Results from a heteroscedasticity-based instrumental variable regression show that internet use for productive purposes increases household income, promotes development of non-farm sectors, and reduces the extraction of and reliance on natural resources. However, results from an unconditional quantile regression show that better-off households benefit relatively more from internet use than worse-off households. These findings indicate a positive income effect of internet use for productive purposes but also raise a concern of increasing income inequality among rural populations from internet development.

KW - Income effect

KW - Instrumental variable

KW - Quantile regression

KW - Rural household

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126843667&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107417

DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107417

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85126843667

VL - 196

JO - Ecological economics

JF - Ecological economics

SN - 0921-8009

M1 - 107417

ER -