ESG uncertainty, economic growth, and tourism performance in the United States: A wavelet quantile mediation and moderation analysis

The United States tourism sector faces growing exposure to sustainability-related uncertainty and shifting macroeconomic conditions. This study examines the direct effect of ESG uncertainty (ESGU) on tourist arrivals (TOR) and investigates whether economic growth (ECOG) moderates or mediates this relationship. Using quarterly data for 2002–2025, the analysis applies a wavelet quantile regression framework extended to mediation and moderation, allowing effects to vary across distributional states and short-, medium-, and long-term horizons. The direct effect of ESGU on TOR is nonlinear and horizon-specific: in the short term, ESGU reduces arrivals at the extreme lower quantile (τ = 0.01) but is associated with higher arrivals at the upper tail (τ = 0.95). In the medium term, a positive ESGU effect persists at upper quantiles (τ = 0.60–0.80). Economic growth does not significantly moderate the ESGU-tourism relationship at any quantile or horizon. As a mediator, ESGU affects economic growth positively only at the lower tail in the short term, but negatively at selected quantiles in the medium and long term. Since economic growth supports tourism at medium- and long-term upper and lower tails, the indirect effect of ESGU on tourism through growth is negative and significant in the medium and long term at distributional extremes, though absent in the short term. These findings point to the importance of horizon- and state-specific policy design for managing sustainability-related uncertainty in the U.S. tourism sector.