The asymmetric impact of air transport on economic growth in Spain: fresh evidence from the tourism-led growth hypothesis

The tourism sector has emerged as an essential driver for economic growth strategies during the last decades. An asymmetric long-run effect of air transport on economic growth is validated assuming a process of social globalization in Spain between 1970 and 2015. To achieve the study’s objective, the recent asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag methodology framework advanced by Shin, Yu, and Greenwood-Nimmo (2014) is applied. For determining the causality direction, this methodology is applied in conjunction with the non-parametric causality test proposed by Diks and Panchenko (2006). The current study also accounts for the effects of renewable energy use and urbanization process over economic growth. Empirical results showed that air transport, urbanization process and social globalization exert positive and significant implications over economic growth, while renewable energy use reduces economic growth, as consequence of an energy mix sustained by fossil sources. Based on these outcomes several policy recommendations were offered in the concluding section.