Economic Growth, Social Inequality, and Environmental Change in Thailand and Cambodia

在发展中经济体，不同家庭之间差异很大的社会不平等和收入增长比传统经济因素所能解释的要大得多。承担这一跨学科研究项目的研究人员假设，环境、社会、文化和历史变化与经济因素相互作用，并以不同的方式影响家庭、村庄和地区，从而解释了收入增长中的不平等和大量剩余差异。研究人员将研究这些因素，并构建泰国和柬埔寨农村、城市周边和国家经济的模型，特别是在湄公河下游流域。他们将运用空间社会科学的方法和见解，特别是空间统计、遥感图像分析、地理信息系统的开发，以及根据新的和现有的经验数据集测试和改进正式的经济模型。这项研究的工作成果将是：(1)广泛的经验数据集和概念模型，将物理变量(例如森林砍伐、水质、土地利用变化)和社会变量(例如移民模式、收入不平等和文化习俗)与经济增长联系起来；以及(2)检验正式模型所作的预测。研究结果将对理解整个地球系统，特别是在经历经济活动增加、社会不平等出现或加剧、周期性社会危机和随之而来的环境退化的环境中土地利用、土地转换和资源可持续的生态和社会经济学基础具有广泛的影响。研究小组代表了社会、物理和计算机科学家的罕见组合，研究将涉及人类学、经济学、地理学、土地利用图像、气候学和计算机科学作为一个连贯的整体。该项目将有助于柬埔寨和泰国以及美国几个学科的高级博士生的研究和教育能力的发展。美国和海外的女性和少数族裔将扮演关键角色，如研究助理、科学技术人员、调查小组组长和工作人员以及数据输入技术人员等。调查人员将非常明确地将重点放在农村地区的培训、教育和人力资本开发上。该项目将有助于经济、社会和环境政策的制定，我们产生的数据集和模型将有助于规划和管理未来可能发生的土地覆盖转换类型。美国调查人员将与泰国的几所大学以及泰国(如泰国银行和农业与农业合作银行)和柬埔寨(如环境部、规划部和高棉研究中心)的政府机构和部委以及非政府组织密切合作。该奖项是2004财年人类和社会动力学(HSD)项目组合的一部分，经过一场有所有NSF董事和办公室参与的比赛。HSD奖励是通过特定的计划管理的，这些计划可能会在奖励的持续时间内发生变化。所有HSD奖项的管理都是在NSF范围内协调的。

Social inequality and income growth that varies considerably across households are larger in developing economies than conventional economic factors can explain. The researchers undertaking this interdisciplinary research project hypothesize that environmental, social, cultural, and historical variations interact with economic factors and affect households, villages, and regions differentially, thereby explaining inequality and a large amount of the residual variance in income growth. The investigators will examine these factors and construct models of the rural, peri-urban, and national economies in Thailand and Cambodia, particularly in the Lower Mekong River Basin. They will deploy the methods and insights of the spatial social sciences, especially spatial statistics, analysis of remotely sensed images, development of geographic information systems (GIS), and the testing and refinement of formal economic models based on new and existing empirical data sets. The work products of the study will be: (1) extensive empirical data sets and conceptual models that relate both physical (e.g., deforestation, water quality, land-use change) and social (e.g., migration patterns, income inequality, and cultural practices) variables to economic growth; and (2) tests of predictions made by formal models. The results of the research will have broad implications for understanding the whole Earth system, especially the ecological and socioeconomic bases of land-use, land-conversion, and resource sustainability in environments that are experiencing increasing economic activity, the emergence or intensification of social inequality, periodic social crises, and consequent environmental degradation.The research team represents an unusual combination of social, physical, and computer scientists, and the research will involve anthropology, economics, geography, land-use imagery, climatology, and computer science disciplines as a coherent whole. The project will contribute to the development of research and education capacity in Cambodia and Thailand as well as among advanced Ph.D. students in several disciplines in the United States. Women and ethnic minorities in the U.S. and abroad will play key roles as research associates, scientific technicians, survey team leaders and staff, and data-entry technicians among other roles. The investigators will focus quite explicitly on training, education, and human capital development in rural areas. The project will contribute to the development of economic, social, and environmental policy, and the data sets and models that we produce will be useful for planning and managing the kinds of land-cover conversion that may occur in the future. The U.S. investigators will collaborate intensively with several Thai Universities and with government agencies and ministries and non-governmental organizations in Thailand (such as the Bank of Thailand and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives), and in Cambodia (such as the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Planning, and the Center for Khmer Studies.) This award is made as part of the FY 2004 Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) portfolio, following a competition that involved participation from all NSF Directorates and Offices. HSD awards are administered through specific programs that may change over the duration of the award. Management of all HSD awards is coordinated on an NSF-wide basis.