Revisiting the Taiwan tourism and economic growth nexus: The role of the impact of COVID-19 using Quantile on Quantile approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we analyse the tourism-led growth hypothesis in Taiwan’s economy. To this end, we consider three tourism markets––China, Japan and the US––and apply quantile-on-quantile regression. Our results indicate that (i) high quantiles of the Chinese tourist market have the most growth effects, while moderate quantiles of Japan and the US markets accelerate economic growth in Taiwan; (ii) recessions in these three markets during the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the economic growth of Taiwan and (iii) development of these three tourism markets acts as an engine of economic growth during downturn periods.