The Causal Effect of Air Pollution on International Tourist Arrivals

Abstract

This paper adopts two approaches in examining the effects of air pollution on foreign tourist visits, namely instrumental variables and long-run growth, using dataset of 141 countries in period 2010-2017. The log of value added of industry per capita is used as an instrumental variable for the log of mean annual exposure of PM2.5 air pollution. Long-run growth of international tourist arrivals and mean annual exposure of PM2.5 air pollution are used in analyzing the long-run growth effect. The findings are that the level of air pollution has a negative influence on the number of foreign tourists visiting a country. Another finding is that the tourist arrival-air pollution elasticity has negative value and less than one.

Keywords: Tourist, Air Pollution, IV, Long-Run Growth