Revisiting the tourism-economic growth nexus: the case of economic community of West African States

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the level of tourism expenditures and economic growth using a short time panel dataset covering 15 West African Countries from 2007 to 2015. The fixed effects results show that tourism expenditures and tourism receipts are insignificant to explain ECOWAS per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. The paper finds that gross capital formation (physical capital) and labour force are positive and significant mechanisms for growth in the per capita income of ECOWAS economy. The paper recommends that ECOWAS should sell all the unused buildings, equipment, machineries and other viable governments’ assets to raise capital for investment which may boost gross domestic product if the proceeds from the sales of the assets are well utilised.