Research note: Tourism as a factor of growth - The case of Brazil

International tourism is recognized to contribute to long-run growth through a whole list of diverse channels. This belief that tourism can cause long-run growth is known in the literature as the 'tourism-led growth hypothesis'. This case study of Brazil can be taken as a specific test for such a hypothesis. In the paper, two different econometric methodologies are applied to two distinct data sets, showing that the results are independent of either data or methodology. On the one hand, annual data from 1965 to 2007 for Brazil as a whole are used for a cointegration analysis to look for the existence of a long-run relationship among variables of economic growth, international tourism earnings and the real exchange rate. On the other hand, high-quality data for the 27 Brazilian states, though for a shorter period (from 1990 to 2005), enable the use of the dynamic panel data model proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991). The authors show that the long-run elasticities between real per capita GDP with respect to tourism receipts and the real rate of exchange are 0.13 and 0.30, respectively. Finally, they compare their results with those of similar studies.