Can Educational Tourism Spur Economic Growth in Malaysia?

Abstract

This paper employs the neoclassical growth model to investigate empirically the role of educational tourism in Malaysia's economic growth during the period of 2002:Q1 to 2014:Q4. The present study finds that all determinants including educational tourism have a significant positive impact on economic growth in Malaysia, especially in the long-run. In terms of Granger causality, our results show that educational tourism and economic growth are Granger-cause each other in both the short- and long-run. In light of this, educational tourism can be an effective stimulator of Malaysia's economic growth. Moreover, the generalised variance decomposition analysis also affirms that educational tourism explained most of the long-run variation in economic growth compared to other determinants. Therefore, educational tourism is found to be a new and reliable source for Malaysia's economic growth. For the sake of brevity, any macroeconomic policies that heading toward promoting inbound educational tourism will probably spur the growth of the Malaysian economy, especially in the long-run.