CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TRANSPORTS, TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT: FRESH EVIDENCE FOR THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Among the traditional determinants, transport infrastructures affect directly and significantly the territorial attractiveness of the foreign direct investment in the host countries. The increasing importance of this new determinant is essentially due to the great causal relationship with several other factors such as the territorial management in the host country. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the importance of transport infrastructures to develop the territorial attractiveness of the developing countries to the multinational firms through their contribution to developing the territorial management and to enhance the quality of the private investment conditions. To do this, we have used a panel data model for 27 developing countries over the period between 1990 and 2014. The results prove that the transport infrastructures affect positively and significantly the territorial attractiveness by the positive influence on the territorial management. Also, the results indicate that the impact of these infrastructures on the territorial management, subsequently on the FDI attractiveness, becomes more important in presence of a good logistics function.