Nonlinear ARDL estimation of tourism demand for Puerto Rico from the USA

Abstract

This study estimates the long-run demand for tourism for Puerto Rico (1970–2016) from the USA. Since income elasticity may not be symmetric through business cycles, it becomes necessary to account for the asymmetric impact of changes in income on tourism demand. To this end, the study utilizes the nonlinear ARDL framework of Shin et al. (2014) to investigate the asymmetric cointegration. The results indicate the existence of an asymmetric or nonlinear cointegration relationship between Puerto Rico's tourism demand and its determinants. The long-run asymmetric income elasticities suggest that a 1% increase in US's real per capita GDP leads to a 1.9% increase in Puerto Rico's tourism earnings, while a 1% decrease in US's real per capita GDP produces a 4.8% reduction in tourism receipts.