Sustainability of service sector growth in Goa: a study based on Granger casuality test

Abstract

The present study attempts to analyse the growth and sustainability of the service sector of Goa's economy, a sector that generates nearly 50 per cent of the state income in real terms and has over 50 per cent of its workforce employed. The basic research question is whether the service sector led growth pattern in Goa is sustainable in the long run, given the fact that services growth in Goa was driven by government services during its pre-statehood period i.e., from 1970-71 to 1986-87 and by tourism-related consumer services like trade, hotel and restaurant services, during the post-statehood i.e., from 1987-88 to 2003-04. The Granger Causality (GC) test findings indicate that the service sector can sustain its growth momentum, through its sub-sectoral and intra-sectoral linkages.