Abstract

transport is one of the most important industries in the world with its rapid growth, and direct and indirect contribution to world economy. In other words, GDP, tourism and employment are the key factors causing that growth in air transport and an increase in those factors boost the demand for air transport. However, uncertainty in economy, rising unemployment and increased terrorist attacks towards tourism would be a big threat to the growth of air transport in the future. To understand the importance of the mentioned factors, we first aim to apply an econometric approach which is panel Granger causality analysis. To achieve that, data from World Bank data set for OECD countries between the year of 2000 and 2013 is used in this study. We apply Pesaran CDLM test and Friedman’s test which are preferred when the number of units (N) is higher than the time (T) to test cross-sectional dependence and we then perform Granger causality analysis in order to see whether there is a causal relationship (unidirectional or bidirectional) or not among air transport, tourism, economic growth and employment. Econometric results indicate that there is a unidirectional short run causal relationship between economic growth, tourism, employment and air transport and that those factors play an important role in the growth of air transport. In this paper, we also aim to discuss the future challenges for air transport within the frame of econometric results and statistical analysis. Publisher version

Abstract

Kiraci, Kasim/0000-0002-2061-171X; BAKIR, Mahmut/0000-0002-3898-4987 WOS: 000510158200002 This study aims to find out the causal relationship between air transport and economic growth based on income level. To this end, selected countries with high-income, upper-middle-income, lower-middle-income, and low-income levels were included in the analyses for this study. Focusing on the 1990-2016 period, a total of 70 countries were classified according to their income levels and were analyzed empirically. in the study, panel causality analyzes by Konya (2006) and Emirmahmutoglu & Kose (2011) were used. Our findings show that GDP has a certain degree of effect on air transport. They also indicate that the unidirectional or bidirectional causal relationships running from GDP to air transport and air transport to GDP vary by the income level of countries.