Drawing lessons on more than 15 years of fieldwork conducted by Robert M. Townsend, this documentary reveals the emerging spirit and dynamism of the Thai people and shares extraordinary observations about the nature of emerging markets, what makes entrepreneurs successful, how their communities support them, and the large role they play in national growth and the creation of wealth.
Media Coverage
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Trailer for "Emerging Thailand: The Spirit of Small Enterprise" Documentary Releasedwww.EmergingThailand.orgOctober 3, 2013
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Book Review: Chronicles from the Field: The Townsend Thai ProjectLondon School of Economics Review of BooksAugust 15, 2013
Joana Lenihan reviews “Chronicles from the Field: The Townsend Thai Project.” In her review, she notes, “(The) book gives us valuable insights on the running of such a project and is written in an honest fashion, which will appeal to readers from a wide variety of disciplines, and to both academic and non-academic readers alike.”
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Insights from 15 years of Fieldwork in ThailandDevelopment Impact Blog (World Bank)July 22, 2013
David McKenzie, a lead economist at the Development Research Group of the World Bank, offers insight and discussion of Professor Townsend’s new book Chronicles from the Field on the World Bank’s development blog.
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Access to Health Care Among Thailand’s Poor Reduces Infant MortalityConsortium on Financial Systems and Poverty (Press Release)June 6, 2013
Robert M. Townsend’s study “The Great Equalizer: Health Care Access and Infant Mortality in Thailand,” with Jonathan Gruber and Nathaniel Hendren and funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, found that reducing out-of-pocket costs of medical care had less of an impact than providing more money to hospitals. The study, forthcoming in the American Economics Journal: Applied Economics, also suggests that health reforms should make reimbursements to health care providers a primary concern for any effective health reforms.
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Financial Markets and Contracts Graduate Student ConferenceBecker Friedman Institute at the University of ChicagoMay 20, 2013View Article
Townsend and Lars Peter Hansen, University of Chicago, organized a conference highlighting the work of graduate students pursuing research on financial markets.
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Evaluation of the Financial Systems of Developing Countries: A Policy Algorithm Using Theory and DataMay 1, 2013
Townsend lectured at the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Insitute on May 7th. He discussed work that provides an algorithm for approaching policy advice related to the financial systems of developing countries (and others) using a combination of theory and data. In this lecture, Townsend provided a brief review of CGE and DSGE models; an applied general equilibrium development approach; and the relationship among these approaches.
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Deep in the FieldMIT NewsApril 11, 2013
MIT News writer Peter Dizikes interviews Robert Townsend about his new book “Chronicles from the Field,” co-authored by Rob Jordan and Sombat Sakunthasathien.The book details how Townsend spent two decades in rural Thailand, exploring the links between household finances and economic growth.
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Microfinance in Thailand: The biggest lender of them allThe EconomistJanuary 1, 2013View Article
The Economist blog “Schumpeter” examines Thailand’s microfinance program, citing the findings of Robert M. Townsend and Joseph Kaboski’s 2011 paper, “A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative.”
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Townsend, Kaboski Awarded 2012 Frisch MedalConsortium on Financial Systems and PovertyJuly 2, 2012
Robert M. Townsend and Joseph Kaboski were awarded the 2012 Frisch medal by the Econometric Society for their article entitled, “A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale, Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative.” The article, published in Econometrica in September 2011, is one of the first structural attempts to model and comprehensively evaluate the impact of a large-scale microfinance program, the Thai Million Baht Village Fund program in Thailand. Townsend is the only recipient to be awarded the medal twice.
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Townsend Interviewed by New York Times’ Thomas FullerNew York TimesJune 4, 2012View Article
Robert M. Townsend was quoted by New York Times writer Thomas Fuller in an article discussing Thailand youth’s declining interest in rice farming, one of the country’s largest export crops. Townsend specifically commented on the relative size of debt of farmers as well as the diversification of income of farming families, who typically also own and run small enterprises in addition to farming. These findings come from Townsend’s monthly survey of Thai villages, which has been collecting data since 1998.