AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF THE TERRITORIAL CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

The paper investigates Romanian territorial capital components and analyses the relationship between them and economic growth using structural equation modeling methodology (SEM). The available dataset across Romanian counties (NUTS 3) offered by national statistics allows for identifying five components of territorial capital: economic, infrastructural, institutional, human and social capital. Our research reveals that four components - economic, infrastructural, institutional and human capital - are contributing positively to the Romanian territorial capital and one - social capital - has a negative impact. Also, we found that not all the components of the Romanian territorial capital positively influenced economic growth. The findings document a positive impact of economic and infrastructural capital, a negative impact of social capital and an insignificant impact of human capital and institutional capital on economic growth. In our opinion, all these findings have important development policy implications and urging for future research.