Development Regions Of Romania Research Articles

Analysis of the Romanian Health System from the Perspective of the Number of Hospitals

The paper presents aspects of the indicators related to the health system in Romania. The indicators considered were: the number of hospitals by type of ownership (public and private) and by development regions of Romania, time evolution (for the period 1990-2021) followed by the detailed analysis on the year 2021 of the healthcare staff, represented by the number of physicians (dentists excluded), and of the resident population at January 1st 2021. The data used for the analysis was obtained from the National Institute of Statistics. From the results of the research, it is worth noting the division into three large categories of areas according to the number of hospitals, respectively: the developed area, the partly developed area, and the undeveloped area.

The relation between digitalization and regional development in Romania

Digitalization is an essential element for the development of today’s society, in the context of actual geo-political challenges. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalization, offering new perspectives on sustainable and inclusive development. From the point of view of the regional approach, digitalization can have an important impact on the level of territorial development and on the reduction of economic and social inequalities. This paper proposes to identify the relationship between a series of indicators specific to digitization and regional GDP, with the help of panel models. The objective of the research is to estimate the relationship between GDP and two indicators specific to digitalization: online commerce and broadband internet infrastructure, the level of the eight development regions in Romania. Dependency modelling, based on econometric equations, offers the possibility of highlighting the way in which the two indicators of the digital economy contribute to the growth of GDP per capita. This analysis aims to illustrate the fact that broadband technologies and the increase in the number of people using the Internet for commercial purposes can have a positive impact on the growth of the regional economy. The results of the analysis highlighted the direct relationship of the indicators between the three variables related to the digitalization process at the level of Romania’s regions and the strong influence of broadband internet and online trade on GDP per capita, proving that any growth among independent variables will lead to an increase amongst the dependent variables.

Exploring Dental Health and Its Economic Determinants in Romanian Regions.

Sustainable dental health is reflected in the high quality of the medical act and the high quality of the medical service, which cannot be achieved without considering the existing social context, especially the economic development of a state, where certain economic variables can become real levers of influence. The goal of this paper is twofold—theoretical and empirical. Firstly, at the theoretical level, we provide the context and the development of the health legal framework and the state of the Oral Health System and the provision of dental medical services in the eight Romanian Regions of Development. The second aim is to evaluate the relationship between dental health and well-being for the case of regions of Romania over the period 2001–2015. To review the dental health care in Romania, we will use descriptive analysis as the methodology, and to explore the relationship between dental health and economic determinants, we will use an econometric model, the OLS model. Our working hypothesis is that dental health care is influenced by the economic variables in a country. The results show a positive and significant relationship between dental health care and the most important indicator of well-being, the level of income. Of course, an important role is played by the complexity of education, expressed by research and development, which determines a significant positive relationship with dental health in the development regions of Romania.

Possibilities of Romania to achieve Objective 11 – “Sustainable cities and communities” under the 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy

Abstract The paper represents an analysis of Romania’s possibilities of achieving Objective 11 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy, entitled “Sustainable Cities and Communities”. In order to determine the possibilities to achieve the objective, the average evolution rate method was used to predict the evolution of the indicator “share of the population served by the public water supply system” until 2030. Also, given the very large regional gaps between the 8 development regions of Romania, with the help of the rank method, the regions were ranked according to three important indicators that can be the basis for achieving objective 11, respectively: the share of the population served by the public water supply system; gross investments in tangible goods from local units active in the production and supply of electricity and heat, gas, hot water and air conditioning and water distribution and sanitation, waste management, decontamination activities, per capita and gross domestic product per capita.

Log in or out of online schooling: the case of Romania.

This paper is about access to and participation in education under COVID-19 circumstances, in 2020, for the case of Romania. The study is based on a desk research and a qualitative research. The purpose of conducting the desk research was to better understand the circumstances under which educational activities have been performed in Romania during 2020. The qualitative research was conducted between November and December 2020, with the representatives of disadvantaged educational units from several development regions of Romania. The following research questions guided the study: (i) what are the key factors influencing access and participation in educational activities during the pandemic in Romania? (ii) which are the coping strategies (if any) developed in response to the pandemic constraints? The respondents of the qualitative research are school principals of ten pre-university disadvantaged educational units. The conducted thematic analysis identified six themes, with various subsequent themes in each field. They are grouped as follows: (1) high instability of the educational environment; (2) distance learning without an online component, incorporating a discussion on access to equipment and internet; local administrative capacity; increased educational risks and inequalities and implications for student’s assessment; (3) distance learning for children with special educational needs and children with disabilities; (4) coping strategies used in distance learning; (5) parents’ participation in distance learning and (6) perceived difficulties and support needed during distance learning. The paper provides implications and future research directions in the last section.

Socio-economic analysis of development regions in Romania

Regional development is a priority objective of the EU. Reducing gaps and inequalities between European countries or regions requires coordinated efforts through a regional development policy. To make the implementation of regional political measures more efficient, the European territory was divided into regions according to certain territorial division criteria, NUTS. Considering this context, the paper aims to carry out a socioeconomic analysis at the regional level, using the Tempo Online statistical database of the National Institute of Statistics (INS). For this purpose, indicators were used regarding the labor force, the level of living and economic statistics of the development regions in Romania.

A dynamic image of the final authority act of local public administrations exercised by issuing building permits. Case study: the South-East Development Region of Romania

In Romania, territorial/spatial development is understood as the process of transforming the geography of inhabited territories, taking into consideration: territorial planning, urban planning and development, public works, habitat and housing, construction. It is governed by the regulatory framework in force, aligning its policies and strategies with the main reference documents at the European level. The construction sector is a key sector for investment and economic development, playing an important role in achieving the sustainable development objectives through the impact that the quality of construction has on the quality of life and by ensuring the necessary environment for most human activities. The building permit is the final authority act of the local public administration on the basis of which the execution of construction works is allowed in accordance with the measures provided by law regarding the placement, design, construction, operation and post-use of buildings. Starting from comparative structural analyses on the number of building permits issued by the local public administrations in the South-East Region, the objective of this research has been to obtain a dynamic image, through a quantitative assessment, of the number of building permits issued for residential buildings, highlighting the way in which they directly influence the sustainable development of urban and rural localities in the South-East Region of Romania.

Competitiveness and cohesion in Romania's regional development: a territorial approach

The assessment of the socio-economic disparities at the regional level is one of the priority development topics. In particular, in formerly socialistic-planned countries, the development driven by the transition period, the accession to the European Union and the economic crisis, the regional disparities are present. The main aim of the research has been to identify the most competitive and the most cohesive Development Regions in Romania by computing, mapping and analysing two secondary indices (Territorial Competitiveness and Territorial Cohesion). Overall, the investigation shows that economic performance is more consolidated in central and western regions based on their mature and innovative industries, better-developed services and urbanisation/suburbanisation processes, while the eastern and southern development regions, with predominantly rural traits, experienced a significant industrial decline and social deprivation. The most competitive Development Region is Bucharest-Ilfov, given the advantage conferred by Bucharest Capital City, the main economic and social polarising centre in Romania. For reducing regional disparities, the Cohesion Policy should allocate increased funds for countries with least developed regions. The study provides the result of quantitative and qualitative analysis on the regional-level territorial disparities in Romania that could easily be considered as guidelines in the decision-making process while trying to achieve the competitiveness and cohesion goals.

DO ENTREPRENEURIAL DYNAMICS AND EMPLOYMENT INFLUENCE ECONOMIC GROWTH? EVIDENCE FOR ROMANIA

The literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship, firm formation and economic development often describes entrepreneurship as a complex phenomenon, led by individuals, embedded in a broad economic and societal context, which, in regional terms, influences the quality and results of the entrepreneurial process. From a micro-economic perspective, the region is shaped by the myriad of laborious and innovative actions of entrepreneurs, looking for opportunities, taking risks, starting businesses and generating economic and social associations. Competition, trust, networks, mentalities, the education system, public policies, all are ingredients that can provide opportunities for many actors at the local level (institutions, businesses, population, etc.) and thus, for the region as a whole to thrive. Often these elements can offer the opportunities of economic convergence between regions and countries. On the other hand, we found that the potential of entrepreneurship to generate benefits and an impetus for the economic growth of regions were not fully researched and understood, despite suggestive empirical evidence and a rich literature in regional studies. In this article we analysed, at the level of the 8 development regions of Romania, the relation between the firm’s formation and the evolution of the Gross Domestic Product, respectively the relation between employment/active population and the evolution of the Gross Domestic Product. We did not find clear evidence that the pace of setting up new businesses has a certain effect on economic growth or employment, but we found that in some regions, better equipped in terms of infrastructure, qualification and diversity of human capital, entrepreneurial dynamics could moderately influence the positive evolution of these macroeconomic indicators.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF TOURISTS ARRIVED IN ROMANIA'S DEVELOPMENT REGIONS AND THE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT

At national level, the contribution of tourism to the formation of the Gross Domestic Product is quite significant, considering the year 2019, when the contribution of tourism was 6.1% (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2021). Thus, the connection between tourism and Gross Domestic Product is indisputable. The purpose of this study is to find out the influence of the number of tourists arriving in the development regions of Romania on the Gross Domestic Product. The regression method was applied for data processing, using the statistical program EViews. The highest increase in the Gross Domestic Product, depending on the increase in the number of tourists, is registered in the South-Muntenia Development Region, and the smallest increase is registered in the Bucharest-Ilfov Development Region. The results show that a large number of tourists does not necessarily mean generating a considerable increase in Gross Domestic Product.

Performance Improvements for Romanian SMEs and Their Predictors

The corporate governance of Romanian SMEs states that these companies have been less and less able to generate performance over the last few years. An average number of 1.273 SMEs per year have been included in the study, coming from all the eight local development regions of Romania. The data covers a period of 14 financial years, between 2005 and 2018. The findings showed, after statistical computations using regression models, that the performance of Romanian SMEs depended on the level of external managerial consultancy that corporate governance received from specialized companies and on the increasing level of wages. Given the high flexibility potential of SMEs, these choices are seen as tailored actions and strategies to compete successfully and support sustainable performance in the local context where its trend is downward. Moreover, the act of achieving performance at present is upheld by the performance attained in previous financial years. The impact of these factors could be established as a matter of priority in a long-term approach, for a time lag of up to 3 years. Moreover, the performance of companies covering all the local development regions is influenced only to a small degree by taxation levels, by the frequency of tax supervision performed by government institutions, by the capacity of corporate governance to be up to date with legislative change or by the self-financing of the activity conducted by the companies.

Urban Bioregions and Territorial Identities in Romania. The Role of Information and Communication Technology

This article explores the current measures and initiatives implemented in Romania to determine what is the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in creating bioregions, and especially in how cities, as potential urban bioregions, play a part in this process. The exploratory documentation and database creation was done through keyword-search on the Google search engine, because of the current COVID-19 restrictions. The initiatives found by keyword searching were then divided into two categories, ICT-related, and non-ICT, and represented in table format. The keyword-based search has led to several results, which were displayed using ArcMap 10.5 and analysed by being superimposed on the historical and development regions of Romania. Firstly, results showed that, in Romania, a bigger concentration of population did not necessarily correlate with a higher number of sustainable practices. Secondly, that cities’ bio/eco food demand, as well as fertile soil, created the premise for the start of numerous eco/bio-certified farms and businesses. Thirdly, cities, and especially the four major regional capitals (Bucharest, Iași, Cluj-Napoca, and Timișoara) had more practices and especially smart-based ones. Finally, results indicated a large regional inequality in terms of the number of sustainable practices, with eastern regions being shallower, while western regions and those counties in proximity to important urban centres being favoured. This exploratory study helps to understand the stage of reaching the aims of the bioregional paradigm in Romania.

The Evolution of Rural Clusters Within the Cluj Metropolitan Area

The identification of the metropolitan area was limited to the surrounding localities in a radius of about 30 km around Cluj-Napoca. This distance is considered in EU the best practice for the development of the peri-urban space. The Cluj Metropolitan Area (CMA) is located in Cluj County, the north-western development region of Romania. The Cluj Metropolitan Area is composed from voluntary association of communes plus the city of Cluj-Napoca, forming an urban network composed of two metropolitan rings. The first metropolitan ring is the purpose of our study. The transformation of communes into residential and complex clusters is also analyzed. The seven localities inside the first ring had significant changes in population and land use between 2002 and 2020. The increase of the population and decrease of the agricultural land area are premises in achieving urban homogeneity in the metropolitan area. Keywords: Cluj Metropolitan Area, metropolitan rings, urban space, rural clusters.

Knowledge transfer between universities and smes and regional development. The role of the clusters as communities of practice

Abstract The Exchange of knowledge between universities and SMEs became a source of sustainable competitive advantages. The innovation capacity of SMEs is under pressure for various reasons since knowledge management is more costly and innovation readiness more difficult to be achieved. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) became in this context critical players in the knowledge-based economy to interact with small companies. The traditional functions of universities are the generation of knowledge (research) and its transmission (teaching) are reconsidered in order to better serve the managers. This paper investigate conditions SMEs and universities may better work together, assuming that a pro university-SMEs cooperation behaviour at the level of the SMEs managers and universities is an essential factor of an efficient transfer of knowledge. Evidence of this interaction from development regions of Romania are shown in order to identify emerging cooperation patterns. Another area this paper investigates is the interaction of universities and SMEs when they are bound together in a longer cooperation alliances, in clusters. Actions to develop clusters include universities as central resource. The research intends to review the role of the university in cluster development for Romanian development regions on their struggle to occupy a role in European smart specialization processes. As a main conclusion, the article argues that smart specialization and communities of practice are interconnected concepts enabling innovation processes in university-industry interaction. Knowledge transfer may be more efficient when clusters and universities are interacting on a long-term basis.

A regional agricultural efficiency convergence assessment in Romania – Appraising differences and understanding potentials

This study proposes an assessment of the regional agricultural efficiency convergence potential across the Romanian development regions during a period of sixteen years (from 2001 to 2017). Using the Cobb-Douglas function and the cluster analysis, it investigates the agricultural development and efficiency in the development regions of Romania, based on the available official datasets. The main aim of the research is to appraise the potential of these seven development regions (Bucharest – Ilfov Region was excluded), and to understand the differences between them, from the perspective of agriculture’ future, and the impact agriculture can have on the sustainable development of each region, through a new domestic agricultural paradigm. The results suggest that agriculture has a major impact on the development of a region as a whole, and that, in the absence of future reform measures in agriculture, the regions will be highly affected by their agricultural underperformance.

Assessing the Potential Future Forest-Cover Change in Romania, Predicted Using a Scenario-Based Modelling

Forest-cover dynamics is of wide concern due to its role in climate change, biodiversity losses, water balance and land degradation, as well as social and economic development. Hence, exploring land-use/cover dynamic is important in order to improve our understanding of the causes of forest-cover change and to detect the future trend. Furthermore, projecting a future land-use/cover pattern can help identifying potential areas where forest-cover change will occur in the future and the potential consequences of these processes in order to improve land-use planning and policies. Similar to other East European countries, Romania is experiencing rapid land-use/cover changes after the breakdown of socialism; a clear trend was registered by deforestation, which reflects the consequences of a continuous forests dynamics and little environmental care. Consequently, this study, carried out in order to analyse the potential future cover-change, resulted in the land-use/cover scenario (2007–2050) simulated using CLUE-S (the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent) modelling framework, applied to development regions in Romania. Overall, the model results in different spatial patterns of land-use/cover change, projecting a slight increase in the forest-cover area of about 82,000 ha. Furthermore, the model simulated widespread deforestation, mainly in relation to agricultural land expansion. The area under the curve (AUC) for the relative operating characteristic (ROC) and the Kappa simulation (KSimulation) were used to assess the predictive power of the determinant factors included and to evaluate the spatial performance of the model. The obtained ROC/AUC values (0.83–0.88) indicate the great power of the determinant factors to explain the forest-cover pattern in the area. Furthermore, the KSimulation scores (0.69–0.79) highlight the potential of the CLUE-S model to simulate future forest-cover change in relation to the other land-use/cover categories. The results can provide useful inputs for effective forest resource management and environmental policies. Moreover, the spatial data obtained can contribute to exploring future potential environmental implications (e.g. assessing landslide and flood hazard scenarios, forest biomass dynamics and their impact on carbon allocation, or the impact of forest-cover change on ecosystem services).

Regional disparities in the public health care system: Evidence from Romania

Abstract The European Pillar of Social Rights proclaimed the people’s right to access to healthcare facilities and services, irrespective of the geographic residence. Currently, the health system in Romania has a number of major deficiencies, ranging from the lack of state-of-the-art equipment in some hospitals, inadequate medical staff in many hospital units, to the lack of essential, vital medicines needed for treatments prescribed to the sick. The paper aims to analyze the differences in the public health care system between the eight development regions in Romania (Northwest, Center, North-East, South-East, South-Muntenia, Bucharest-Ilfov, South-West Oltenia and West) and to identify the reasons that led to their appearance. The paper presents a detailed examination of the main statistical indicators of the public health care system in Romania using a series of statistical analysis techniques. We founded significant differences amongst the eight development regions in Romania, regarding the functioning of the public health care system. Some regions (such as Bucharest Ilfov) is found to outperform others; these regional gaps are analyzed attempting to highlight the main reasons of the regional disparities.

The Contribution of European Structural Funds to the Development of the Rural Tourism Infrastructure of Romania’s South West Oltenia Development Region

The strategic role of tourism sector and its considerable contribution to economic development, employment, social and environmental sustainability is acknowledged by all decision-making bodies, from world wide tourism associations (World Tourism Organization – WTO) to national, regional and local communities. The current article analyses the direct contribution of European structural funds on the development of tourism infrastructure in South West Oltenia, one of the development regions of Romania, over the past 15 years. The data used for the research covers the pre-accession funds allocation (SAPARD Programme), the investments in tourism infrastructure from 2007–2013 financial programming framework as well as the current 2014–2020 programming framework – selected projects. The main conclusion that emerges form the research is that European structural funds had greatly contributed to the development of rural tourism infrastructure both in terms of quantity as well as in quality.

Assessment of the climate potential for tourism. Case study: the North-East Development Region of Romania

For the North-East Development Region of Romania, balneary-climatic tourism can potentially become a development engine. To this type of tourism, other forms or types of tourism are added, which are to some extent conditioned by the regional particularities of the climate and bioclimate. To better understand the climatic conditioning on the tourism in this region, we have selected five representative balneary-climatic resorts, located in three different bioclimatic zones: tonic-stimulant (Vatra Dornei), sedative-indifferent (Slănic Moldova, Târgu Ocna, and Bălţătesti), and turn-applicant (Nicolina). The location under different bioclimatic conditions allowed us a good comparative analysis of the differences and similarities between the resorts. For this, we used an hourly database for the period January 1, 1961 to December 31, 2015, from which we built the daily database for all the elements and parameters required to calculate the physiologically equivalent temperature index, based on the RayMan model, its representations, and the climate-tourism schemes. The physiologically equivalent temperature and the climate-tourism schemes allowed us to identify the best periods of the year for conducting balneary and climate-therapeutic activities—both adjacent and standalone, or a variety of relaxing or recreational leisure activities conducted in the open. Finally, the trends of the annual series of PET data for the interval 1961–2015 and the subintervals 1961–1980 and 1981–2015 were identified and analyzed. We were consequently able to draw a set of conclusions outlining a series of changes that are likely to intervene in the relationship between climate and tourism in this region in the immediate future.

The Effects of the Cohesion Policy on the Sustainable Development of the Development Regions in Romania

The objective of this study was to characterize the development regions in Romania and to measure spatial imbalances, starting from the national and the European Union aspiration to promote more economic and social policies adapted to the different regional particularities. For this purpose, we conducted a multifactorial analysis of the sustainability of the development regions in Romania at NUTS II level by constructing a synthetic index of socio-economic development for the regions that appreciate sustainability and have accepted structural and cohesion funds. The multi-criteria synthetic index was obtained by aggregating several sub-indices (economy, health, education, public utilities, and living standards). We used cluster analysis to identify patterns of regional development in Romania over time. For 1998 and 2006, the same cluster structure was obtained. However, due to economic and social changes that occurred after 2006 (negative impact of the global financial crisis as well as the positive impact of EU funds), in 2016, we recorded another structure of clusters, except in the Bucharest-Ilfov region which continues to present a number of unique features. In addition, we show that the polarized regional development model is increasingly strengthening and the network of urban agglomerations needs to be territorially balanced to boost their ability to “export” wealth.