How Fast are Small Tourism Countries Growing? Evidence from the Data for 1980–2003

Brau, Rinaldo and Lanza, Alessandro and Pigliaru, Francesco (2007): How Fast are Small Tourism Countries Growing? Evidence from the Data for 1980–2003. Published in: Tourism Economics , Vol. 13, No. 4 (December 2007): pp. 600-613.

Abstract

We analyze the empirical relationship between growth, country size and tourism specialization by using a dataset covering the period 1980-2003. We find that tourism countries are small and grow significantly faster than all the other sub-groups considered in our analysis. Tourism appears to be an independent determining factor for growth: controlling for initial per-capita income and for trade openness does not weaken the positive correlation between tourism specialization and growth. Another finding of our paper is that small states are fast growing only when are highly specialized in tourism. In contrast with some previous conclusions in the literature, smallness per se is not good for growth.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Small states, growth, tourism, cross country comparisons
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F4 - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance > F43 - Economic Growth of Open Economies; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O57 - Comparative Studies of Countries

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