“ARE ASEAN COUNTRIES INVOLVED IN MIDDLE INCOME TRAP ?” LESSON LEARNED FROM THAILAND, INDONESIA, MALAYSIA, VIETNAM AND PHILIPPINES

Abstract

Middle income Trap  is  the  situation in  which a  middle income countries falls into economic stagnation and becomes unable to advance its economy to a high income level. Main purpose in this research is to examine the influences of secondary education, patent, productivity (TFP) and control of corruption to the GDP Per Capita in avoiding middle income trap for the five ASEAN countries by using panel data regression during 2002-2013. The five ASEAN countries are Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam. The method used to investigate the best model for panel data were Chow Test and Hausman Test. The result showed that secondary education and  patent  have  positive  relationship and  significant to  the  GDP  Per  Capita,  but productivity has  negative relationship and  significant to  the  GDP  Per Capita  and  control of corruption has positive relationship but insignificant to the GDP Per Capita. The conclusion is that secondary education and patent can contribute more in increasing GDP Per Capita.

Keywords : Middle income countries, Middle income trap, GDP Per Capita, Education, patent,  productivity, corruption