Fonte: Journal of Tourism & Development; v. 4, n. 21/22 (2014); 167-180
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Resumo: During periods in which there are large fiscal adjustments in a country’s economy, spending and public investment decreases as a result of the adjustment process. Often we are witnessing a general tax increase to generate more public revenue, and at the expenditure side, a ‘blind’ cut in government expenditure in order to reduce public spending. A greater tax burden has consequences, direct or indirect, on labour income that, in turn, lead to a decrease in the purchasing power of the population and hence the decline in domestic demand. This type of fiscal policies, in the short term, leads to contraction of a country’s economy and the economic recovery strongly depends on the goods and services export sector in which is included the tourism sector. Between 1970 and 2012 Portugal was required to make three large fiscal adjustments due to external imbalances. This paper aims to understand if the international tourism demand is in countercyclical with business cycle, thus functioning as a stabilizer for the economy, or whether it is in accordance with it. Using a Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ADL) Model for the period 1970-2012, the result of the estimations suggest that the tourism sector during the three periods of large fiscal adjustment has never worked as a stabilizer of the economy.
