Investigating Existence of Tourism-Led Growth Hypothesis in Cental Asian Republics: A Bootstrap Panel Causality Analysis

The contribution of tourism to economic growth can be analyzed under the hypothesis of tourism-led growth. In this sense, this study aims at investigating the existence of the tourism-led growth hypothesis in the Turkic republics for the period 1995-2011. To this end, a bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis which was recently developed by Konya (2006) was employed. Results showed that, in a panel context, the tourism-led growth hypothesis is valid for the Turkic republics. However, the validity of this hypothesis is country specific.