A Further Step into the ELGH and TLGH for Spain and Italy

Nowadays many developing countries fo cus on economic policies for promoting
international tourism and exports expansion as a potential source of economic growth of
the country. However, the understanding of the relationship between exports and
economic growth is still ongoing. When treat ing the relationship between tourism and
economic growth, considering tourism as a non-traditional export few studies have been
published to date. This paper has the objective to assess if exports and tourism have
really promoted growth by means of the export-led grow th hypothesis (ELGH) and the
tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). The cases under analysis ar e Spain and Italy,
two of the most important countries worldw ide regarding the expansion of tourism.
Cointegration techniques and the multivariate Granger causality test are applied. Results
reveal that exports cause economic growth in the long-term for both countries, whilst
only for Spain tourism appears as a factor which influences economic growth in the
long-run.