Townsend Thai Project Institutional Annual Resurvey, 2007

The project is carried out in Thailand under the direction of Khun Sombat Sakuntasathhien and dedicated staff. The project is administered in the United States at the National Opinion Research Center and the University of Chicago. Survey design and research collaborators include Anna Paulson of Northwestern University, Tae Joeng Lee of Yonse University, and Michael Binford of the University of Florida. Robert M. Townsend is overall project director and principal investigator. The initial purpose of the NICHD-NSF funded project was to evaluate the role of informal institutions such as the family and local networks in helping to support the welfare and well-being of individuals in semi-urban and rural areas of Thailand. Risk, and the potentially adverse and direct consequences of household- and firm-specific shocks is a key part of project. The mediating role of the family and social and economic networks in the mobilization of savings and allocation of c redit was also deemed essential. These networks are not viewed in isolation but rather are part of the larger village, regional, and national level financial system. Thus the project includes an evaluation of village-level financial institutions, such as Production Credit Groups and rice banks, and national-level financial institutions such as commercial banks and the government agricultural bank, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC). Indeed, the project has both micro and macro aspects. It seeks to evaluate informal and formal financial institutions and markets and to construct and evaluate macro models of growth, fluctuations, and crisis. The macro models are based on the measured micro- underpinnings. 161 institutions were surveyed in the initial l997 cross-section survey. In the annual resurveys we checked to see if an institution was pre-existing, but new institutions were added as well. Some i nstitutions had failed. For example in l998, 45 institutions were sampled in total.

本项目由孔·桑巴特·沙坤塔萨提恩（Khun Sombat Sakuntasathhien）与专业团队主导，在泰国境内开展，项目执行管理工作则由美国的全国民意研究中心（National Opinion Research Center）与芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）负责。本项目的调研设计与合作研究人员包括西北大学的安娜·保尔森、延世大学（Yonsei University）的李泰正（Tae Joeng Lee）以及佛罗里达大学的迈克尔·宾福德，罗伯特·M·汤森（Robert M. Townsend）担任项目总负责人与首席研究员。本项目由美国国立儿童健康与人类发展研究所-国家科学基金会（NICHD-NSF）资助，初始目标为评估家庭、地方网络等非正式制度对泰国半城镇与农村地区个体福利与福祉的支撑作用。家庭与企业特异性冲击所带来的风险，及其可能产生的直接不利后果，是本项目的核心研究内容之一；此外，家庭、社会与经济网络在储蓄动员与信贷配置中的中介作用，也被视为关键研究环节。上述网络并非孤立存在，而是更大范围的村落、区域与国家层面金融体系的组成部分，因此本项目同时涵盖对村落层面金融机构（如生产信贷小组与稻米银行），以及国家层面金融机构（如商业银行与政府农业机构——农业与农业合作社银行（Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives，BAAC））的评估。本项目兼具微观与宏观双重研究维度，既旨在评估非正式与正规金融机构及市场，同时也将构建并评估与增长、波动及危机相关的宏观模型，此类宏观模型均基于实测的微观基础构建。1997年的首次横截面调查共调研了161家机构，在后续的年度追踪回访调查中，研究团队会核查机构是否为原有存续机构，同时也会新增纳入新出现的机构，部分机构已终止运营。例如1998年，本次调研共抽样了45家机构。