Effects of the relationship of economic growth, financial development and logistics performance on global competitiveness: The case of the European Union and European Union candidate countries

The belief that the finance and logistics sector is very valuable for national economies is increasing day by day due to the serious economic dimensions of major events such as financial crises, pandemics or natural disasters. For this reason, it has become important to examine the effects of financial development, logistics activities, which are a rising value, and economic growth, which is always effective, on global competition. Financial development, as one of the factors determining the level of global competitiveness of countries or regions, has significant effects on macroeconomic environment, institutions, quality and level of education, labor and goods market efficiency, technological development, business innovation and privatization. Logistics contributes to achieving high levels of productivity and prosperity for society by bringing producers and consumers together in both local and global markets. The importance of improved logistics performance for countries' global competitiveness has become increasingly important due to the interrelationship between logistics and financial development. Theoretically, a high level of financial development increases productivity, facilitates trade, reduces risk and provides capital. In the study, the financial development variable is measured by five factors and other variables are measured by four factors with the partial least squares structural equation model. European Union and European Union Candidate Countries were selected as the sample and the data for the period 2008-2022 were analyzed with the partial least squares structural equation model. The findings of the analysis supported five of the seven hypotheses proposed in the hypothesis section. Accordingly, the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between economic growth and financial development and the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between economic growth and logistics performance are rejected. Path analysis results for the other hypotheses support the hypotheses. As a result, it is concluded that the variables significantly and positively support global competition both as independent variables and under a single latent variable created as a dependent variable.