Abstract

This thesis is devoted to test the widely held hypothesis that a depreciation of the home currency is beneficial to a country tourism account. Using the aggregate tourism account as well as the accounts between Canada and three of its most important partners in international travel, we examine the sensitivity of the cash outflows and inflows to bilateral exchange rates changes. The exchange rate exposure is modeled using both a regression framework as well as a causality test. The results suggest that at the aggregate level the cash outflows tend to be Granger caused by the Yen and the Pound while there is some form of correlation between the receipt series and the Yen. We extend this research by examining the impacts of the fluctuations of the Canadian dollar vis a vis the US dollar on the stock returns of tourism related firms. Evidence is presented that the firms in the sample do not benefit from a depreciation of the Canadian dollar. We also find that the risk coefficient appears to change over time and the predictive power of the model is not sensitive to the exchange variables used but do change with the market proxy