Examining the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth: Spillover index approach for selected CEE and SEE countries

Debate on tourism-led growth and growth-led tourism is still ongoing today, with much research done for developed countries and those which are popular tourist destinations over the world. Surprisingly, the research is scarce for the Central and Eastern European (CEE) and South and Eastern European (SEE) countries. The contribution of this research is examining the dynamic relationship between spillovers of tourism growth and economic growth for CEE and SEE countries for the first time in the literature. The methodology used in the study (spillover indices) allows for estimating the dynamic relationship throughout rolling indices. Based upon monthly data (with different time spans depending upon availability of data, from January 2000 to January 2003 until December 2017, i.e., October 2018), the following countries were in focus: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. Results from dynamic rolling spillover indices indicate mixed results for all of the countries throughout the sample. Dynamic results enable policymakers from individual countries to focus on specifics of their economies to develop even better policies in order to achieve best possible results regarding the tourism growth and related economic growth.