INVESTISSEMENTS DIRECTS ETRANGERS, DIFFUSION TECHNOLOGIQUE ET CONCENTRATION SPATIALE DANS LES PAYS EN DEVELOPPEMENT

The establishment of multinational firms in the technological sector may have different effects on growth and on the location where domestic firms choose to set up in a developing country, depending on whether linkage effects or the effects of competition prevail. This theoretical model, inspired by Krugman and Livas-Elizondo (1996) and extended by Catin, Ghio and Van Huffel (2001), tries to account for the specific role of the (local and/or interregional) spread of knowledge and of the domestic country's absorption capacity of new technologies. The model shows that after a tendency to polarization in the first stages of development, centrifugal forces are largely determined by the intensity of knowledge externalities.