ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. It focuses on analyzing poverty, inequality, and growth in developing countries based on economic theory and empirical observations. It is generally believed that analysis of economic statistics such as macroeconomic statistics, cross-sectional data, market data, or micro-data is the basis of empirical analysis. The essence of empirical analysis in economics consists of finding suitable models to explain the real world in terms of first approximation with the assistance of economic theory. In the chapter people examines which type of model explains the data from Thailand. The theoretical model that best explains the current Thailand economy is a hybrid model of a wage-difference model and a neoclassical model. This conclusion is consistent with the observation that the country is now facing the middle-income trap.
