This paper investigates and analyzes the long-run equilibrium relationship between the Thai stock Exchange Index (SETI) and selected macroeconomic variables using monthly time series data that cover a 20-year period from January 1990 to December 2009. The following macroeconomic variables are included in our analysis: money supply (MS), the consumer price index (CPI), interest rate (IR) and the industrial production index (IP) (as a proxy for GDP). Our findings prove that the SET Index and the selected macroeconomic variables are cointegrated at I (1) and have a significant equilibrium relationship over the long run. Money supply demonstrates a strong positive relationship with the SET Index over the long run, whereas the industrial production index and consumer price index show negative long-run relationships with the SET Index. Furthermore, in non-equilibrium situations, the error correction mechanism suggests that the consumer price index, industrial production index and money supply each contribute in some way to restore equilibrium. In addition, using Toda and Yamamoto's augmented Granger causality test, we identify a bi-causal relationship between industrial production and money supply and unilateral causal relationships between CPI and IR, IP and CPI, MS and CPI, and IP and SETI, indicating that all of these variables are sensitive to Thai stock market movements. The policy implications of these findings are also discussed.

There are widespread debates as to whether cultural values have a bearing on economic growth. Scholarly articles have actually had conflicting results with proponents arguing there is whiles opponents have thought otherwise. The aim of this paper is to verify the assertions made by these two schools of thought from the perspective of culture as a rationality component using an input-output growth model. We basically employed an approach that sought to define and aggregate cultural values under rationality indices: instrumental, affective, value and traditional rationality from 29 countries with data from world value survey . We systematically had them tested in an endogenous growth model alongside traditional economic variables. We conclude that when these cultural variables are combined with the so-called economic variables, there is an improvement in the model explanation than before. In addition, two of these cultural indices indicated a statistically positive effect on economic growth (instrumental and affective rationality). However, traditional rationality index was also robust but with a negative coefficient. Value rationality showed a somewhat weaker link to economic growth and was statistically insignificant. The policy implications of these findings are also discussed.

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