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ORCID iD

Saqib Munir: 0000-0001-6662-0227

Article Type

Research Article

Abstract

Inclusive economic growth in high-income European economies remains contested despite strong institutions and advanced tourism sectors, with limited understanding of how institutional quality and gender-inclusive governance condition the tourism–inclusivity nexus. This study examines the independent and interactive effects of tourism development, institutional quality, gender-inclusive governance, digital infrastructure, environmental sustainability, and income inequality on inclusive economic growth across 15 European countries over 2000–2024. Using World Bank and WGI data, a panel ARDL framework, supported by FMOLS robustness checks is applied to capture dynamic long- and short-run relationships among mixed-order integrated variables. Results indicate that tourism development (β = 5.351, p < 0.001) and institutional quality (β = 8.029, p < 0.001) decisively enhance inclusive growth, yet their interaction exerts a significant negative effect (β = –5.271, p < 0.001), suggesting over-regulation may dampen tourism’s inclusivity potential. Environmental sustainability also contributes positively (β = 0.164, p < 0.001), while income inequality shows a counterintuitive long-run positive association (β = 0.026, p < 0.001). Gender-inclusive governance has a small but significant positive effect (β = 0.005, p = 0.004), whereas digital infrastructure is statistically insignificant. These findings extend institutional economics and endogenous growth theory by revealing governance flexibility as critical to unlocking inclusive tourism benefits, and they inform SDG 8 and 10 policies by advocating balanced regulatory frameworks, renewable energy investment, and targeted redistributive mechanisms in advanced economies.

Keywords

inclusive economic growth; tourism development; institutional quality; gender-inclusive governance; environmental sustainability; Panel ARDL

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