Romanian economy's competitiveness and integration into the European Union

The purpose of the paper is the theoretical and practical treatment of the Romanian economy's ability to be or become competitive in the post-EU accession and integration into European economic structures. Currently, according to the most popular international hierarchy on competitiveness in Romania is at best half the countries in the world and among the last countries in the EU. What is worrying is that Romania fails to move into more favorable positions. This situation is due to a complex of factors whose action is perpetuated for a long time, and improve prospects for hierarchical position requires drastic revision of mindsets, policies, strategies and means of action.

Scientific approach developed in this paper is based on the theoretical and methodological approach to competitiveness. The concept of competitiveness at a time appeared smooth and continuous development of economic activities and developed with the changes at the international level, in the context of new challenges of knowledge-based economy. From such a perspective were developed definitions of this concept and also built reference models, types valuable for the development of economic thought and economic practice improvement. Dynamic economic phenomena, the diversity and magnitude of failures and discontinuities of modern economies have generated and continue to generate new line concerns the modern theory of competitiveness.

Competitiveness is a complex economic phenomenon, with different interpretations and definitions and measurement methods using single indicators, composite indicators and indicator systems, on which economists have not been put fully back the agreement. Competitiveness is often interdependent on / complementarity with other economic terms and concepts, which can create both confusion errors that lead to understanding of phenomena, and tend to include under the umbrella of this concept very many elements, with more or less relevant.

Identify defining characteristics of competitiveness - competitiveness as ability / capacity to sell in foreign markets, competitiveness as productivity, competitiveness and capacity to create wealth - allowed us to advance their views on the concept of competitiveness. Thus, in our opinion competitiveness interpreted as capacity to create wealth is the notion that the current economic realities described comprehensively. In the fourth chapter we used such a definition to characterize the competitiveness of regions and counties of Romania.

In terms of theories and models related to competitiveness, we approached the main theories in the thesis found in the literature, classified into two groups. The first group is distinguished absolute comparative advantage theory of Ricardian model of Smith and comparative advantage, Heckscher-Ohlin-developed by Samuelson (HOS) and other economists. In the second group are the competitive advantage theories and models nationwide, designed and developed by Michael Porter, who were given a larger space in the paper.

In the paper we insisted on the territorial dimension of competitiveness, making a series of assessments on Romania's counties and regions using the methodology that outlines both aspects of competitiveness based on productivity, and based on the creation of wealth. As a novelty we made an assessment of how the vector-based competitiveness harmonize with the results based on process and an assessment using a simple econometric model of the influence of panel of the main determinants of competitiveness - investment and force labor, and government policies - in the regions and the national economy. The results revealed the counties and regions following aspects: 1) the tendency of "consolidation" of a development model with three levels of development accelerated the development of relative stagnation and relative, 2) very low influence of scientific research and innovation on the competitiveness of local governments, 3) persistent gaps on the development and labor productivity, 4) outline specific ways in response to general policies, sectoral and regional.

Romania has experienced a difficult period in which rigidities and distortions accumulated during the transition will impede further the efforts of government and economic actors to emerge from the crisis and resume development, there is a risk that a number of areas of vital importance for long-term competitiveness of the country be slaughtered to reduce costs and ensure the functioning of the economy (the share of damage, however), most subjects are education and research and development. The paper is a review and some elements of regional policy, with emphasis on the idea that access to European funds in the current accessibility formula exists, but is not free of effort, their impact on local economies / regional is still low and unevenly distributed in the territory. Finally, it presents a series of proposals for measures to increase competitiveness to be implemented until the disaggregated level possible, with time horizons defined, monitored and evaluated properly, and assuming the responsibilities necessary to achieve the objectives in the direction overcome the unfavorable current state and build a real competitive and modern economy on a sustainable improvement of the competitive advantages already earned and full implementation of the value of "good" the price of Romania, or human capital.