Shrabani Saha

The Moderation Effects of Political Instability and Terrorism on Tourism Development A Cross-Country Panel Analysis

Looking at the current political turmoil across the globe, this study aims to analyze the effects of interaction between political instability and terrorism on tourism development using panel data from 139 countries for the period 1999–2009. The study measures the extent to which a country’s political conflicts and terrorism can negatively impact its tourism industry. The results reveal that the effect of political instability on tourism is far more severe than the effects of one-off terrorist attacks. Surprisingly, the findings suggest that terrorist attacks increase tourism demand for those low- to moderate-political-risk countries. However, countries that experience high levels of political risk witness significant reductions in their tourism businesses. In addition, political volatility and terrorism together can cause serious damage to the tourism industry.

Do political instability, terrorism, and corruption have deterring effects on tourism development even in the presence of unesco heritage? A cross-country panel estimate

This article evaluates the effects of political instability, terrorism, and corruption on tourism development, particularly UNESCO-listed heritage destinations. Using a fixed-effects panel data analysis for 139 countries over the period 1999-2009, the result reveals that a one-unit increase in political instability decreases tourist arrivals and tourism revenue between 24 and 31 and 30 and 36, respectively. Furthermore, in the presence of heritage, terrorism has negative effects on tourism demand even though its effect is lower than that of political instability. However, the study shows that an increase in corruption index would not have an adverse influence on tourist arrival numbers, particularly for those countries that have historical and natural heritage. Perhaps, many experienced travelers have expectations that they would require paying bribes to corrupt authorities for travel visa or permits to some tourist destinations in order to make things accessible. Moderation effect results indicate that political instability reduces tourism demand even in UNESCO-listed heritage destinations © 2013 Cognizant Comm. Corp.

Corruption, democracy and Asia-Pacific countries

This paper argues that the relationship between democracy and corruption is non-monotonic. When a country shifts from autocratic rule to highly imperfect democracy (an ‘electoral democracy’) it is frequently perceived that the level of corruption increases. Conversely, when the democracy level is already relatively high (approaching ‘mature democracy’) an increase in the level of democracy is typically expected to decrease the level of corruption. To assist with our discussion of these issues, before going on to the empirical part of the paper, we look specifically at the case of South Korea to illustrate how corruption responded to an increasing level of democracy. Using panel data, we find strong empirical support for the non-monotonic relationship. For Asia-Pacific countries, we find that the democracy-corruption relationship becomes negative, at a surprisingly high level of democracy. Moreover we also find that the South Asian region is the most corrupt.

Investigating the Interaction Effect of Democracy and Economic Freedom on Corruption: A Cross-Country Quantile Regression Analysis

This paper explores the interaction effects of economic freedom and democracy in controlling corruption for 100 countries by using quantile regression technique. The main contribution is to explore the interaction effects throughout conditional distribution of corruption across nations. Our results reinforce some findings in the literature, but also provide new conclusions. The findings suggest a stronger and significant interaction effect in reducing corruption, especially in the most-corrupt countries. However, democratic and economic freedoms alone may not cure corruption effectively in the most-corrupt nations, a sound democratic reform can eliminate corruption substantially only after achieving a threshold level of economic freedom.

Does Political and Economic Freedom Matter for Inbound Tourism? A Cross-National Panel Data Estimation

The article examines the impact of political and economic freedom on inbound tourism for more than 110 countries during 1995–2012. Panel country fixed-effects techniques are utilized to examine the relationship after controlling for other factors that contribute to inbound tourism. The results show that civil liberties and economic freedom (among several other freedom measures) are positively and significantly associated with inbound tourism. Examination of the moderation effect reveals that civil liberties (economic freedom) tend to play a more influential role on inbound tourism when the level of economic freedom (civil liberties) is relatively low.

Do exchange rates affect consumer prices? A comparative analysis for Australia, China and India

An important issue for exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is the extent to which exchange rate changes affect the prices of imported goods and the consumer prices. The objectives of this study are to make a comparative study by exploring the literature relating pass-through for import prices and domestic prices in Australia, China and India. In particular, we test whether the exchange rate pass-through to import prices is complete, estimate the pass-through to consumer price index (CPI) to investigate whether there is any association between the pass-through and the average inflation rate across these countries. A structural VAR model is used to examine the exchange rate pass-through over the period 1990–2011. The impulse responses indicate that exchange rates have less effect in the rising domestic prices in China and India. This will have important policy implication for the monetary authorities.

Corruption and economic development

Corruption is believed to be widespread and it adversely affects countries at different intervals, in different degrees. Corruption scandals show that bribes are commonplace and that even societies that are supposedly free of corruption are affected by it. However, as highlighted in several studies, corruption influences countries’ economic development in a manner in which the perception about rich countries is that they are less corrupt than poor nations. It is unclear, however, if increases in income reduce corruption across regions and income classification consistently. Researchers have often focused on the process of detection rather than exploring the degree to which the income level has an effect on corruption.

Exploring the nexus between tourism demand and cultural similarity.

espanolEste articulo trata de poner apuntalamiento economico a la investigacion del turismo. Utiliza el modelo de gravedad para derivar un modelo econometrico para explorar la relacion entre la similitud cultural y la demanda turistica, con especial referencia a Australia el turismo receptor de 42 paises de origen. Puesto que el lenguaje y la religion se cree que la exposicion principal y portador de la cultura, hemos desarrollado un indice variante normalizada y continua en el tiempo para capturar la similitud en el lenguaje y el perfil religiosa entre un pais de origen y Australia. La inclusion de estos indices en un modelo empirico produce OLS y resultados cuantiles que apoyan la creencia de que existe una estrecha relacion entre la cultura y la similitud de la demanda turistica. EnglishThis article attempts to bring an economic underpinning to tourism research. It uses the gravity model to derive an econometric model to explore the relationship between cultural similarity and tourism demand, with special reference to Australia inbound tourism from 42 source countries. Since language and religion are thought to be the main exposition and carrier of culture, we developed a continuous, normalized, and time variant index to capture the similarity in language and religious profile between a source country and Australia. The inclusion of these indexes in an empirical model yields OLS and quantile results that support the belief that there is a close link between culture similarity and tourism demand.

Does Tourism Sustain Economic Growth? Wavelet-Based Evidence From the United States

This study explores the relationship between tourism development and economic growth in high tourist arrival country such as the United States of America (USA) by adopting the wavelet transform approach using monthly data over the period 1996M01-2015M08. Three innovative techniques that are continuous wavelet, wavelet coherence power spectrum and wavelet based Granger causality that consider the decomposition of time-series at different time frequencies, are utilized to conduct the study. The results of autoregressive distributed lag and combine cointegration tests show that there is a significant long-run relationship occurs between tourism development and economic growth in USA. Furthermore, the results indicate that there is a unidirectional causal influence of economic growth on tourism development in the short-run whereas, in the long-run the opposite causal relationship is evident in USA. Thus it can be recommended that government needs to increase and promote tourism demand and further providing and nurturing the expansion of tourism supply with the advancement of economic growth.

Does corruption facilitate growth? A cross-national study in a non-linear framework

The article examines the corruption–growth relationship in a non-linear framework using panel fixed effects (FE) and system generalized methods of moments (SGMM) model for over 110 countries for the period 1984–2009. The results reveal that the least corrupt countries enjoy higher growth rates, whereas highly corrupt countries experience low growth. Furthermore, corruption has a positive and significant effect on economic growth up to a certain level and thereafter it reduces growth. The results are robust under various methodology and an alternative measure of corruption. JEL Classification: D73, O47, O50