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Tourism and Growth in the Local Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Conti, Laura

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Francesconi, Marco

    (University of Essex)

  • Papini, Giulio

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Serafinelli, Michel

    (King's College London)

Abstract

This paper documents how the local labor market (LLM) responds to a change in touristic attractiveness. Leveraging largely underutilized data from several sources, we exploit a unique classification of Italian localities based on their main touristic assets and aggregate trends in foreign tourists' choices in a shift-share research design. Looking at all LLMs, we find a strong positive relationship between changes in attractiveness and changes in the local tourism-related economic activity, with a positive impact on tourism expenditure and tourism employment, but no effect on total employment. In high-unemployment LLMs, however, we find evidence of sizable total employment effects and large indirect effects generated through industries related to tourism and firms in the nontradable sector. We observe no effects on wage growth. We discuss our results in the context of the current policy debate on the role of tourism in the development of the local economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Conti, Laura & Francesconi, Marco & Papini, Giulio & Serafinelli, Michel, 2025. "Tourism and Growth in the Local Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 17933, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17933
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    local spillovers; unemployment; job growth; tourism; heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • Z30 - Other Special Topics - - Tourism Economics - - - General

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