Minimum Wage and Nation’s Economic Competitiveness: An Empirical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This research has an objective to empirically analyze on the discourse about correlations between the minimum wage and nation’s economic competitiveness, which has been criticized severely by the authorities. The research employs an advanced quantitative methodology, analyzing time-series data of the minimum wage, foreign direct investment in the industrial sector, import of capital goods, domestic machinery sales, and export by advanced statistical methods, regression analysis, the Johansen Cointegration Test, and the Pairwise Granger Causality Test. The analyses reveal that only export has a causal long run relationship with minimum wage. The claim that the minimum wage increase will affect the nation’s economic competitiveness with regard to the investment and export sector is not a good-faith mistake but an effort of discourse fights on the economic unfairness and social-class discrimination, which is still the root of Thailand’s important structural problems.