Does international tourism spur international trade and output? Evidence from wavelet analysis

In this article, we attempt to examine the nexus of trade, economic growth, and international tourism. We resort to wavelet-based analysis to capture the time–frequency-based lead–lag dynamics of this nexus. Considering the monthly data spanning from January 1999 to February 2018 for the United States, we find the evidence that (a) increasing trade leads to higher tourist inflows (in terms of receipts), (b) tourist receipts are lagged by economic growth, and (c) these relationships are significant in the long term. We believe that these results are crucial for policymakers to frame policies regarding tourism in the United States