Development In Romania Research Articles

Indicators for evaluating the role of green infrastructures in sustainable urban development in Romania

Indicators for evaluating the role of green infrastructures in sustainable urban development in Romania

A pilot study on education for sustainable development in the Romanian economic higher education

PurposeThis paper aims to emphasize how economics courses offered at higher education institutions can influence sustainable development, in general, and Romania’s sustainable development, in particular.Design/methodology/approachThe conclusions are based on a pilot questionnaire conducted by the authors on the level of Romanian students enrolled in public and private economic faculties. The results were based on a sample of 1,250 respondents – students, master and PhD – from the economic faculties of some prestigious Romanian universities. To identify differences between some groups, t-test analysis and ANOVA were conducted.FindingsEducation is an important pillar for ensuring sustainable development because through education, people understand and learn how to become more responsible toward the environment. Studies conducted in the twenty-first century are showing a direct link between the investment in education and economic, social and human development. The present study revealed that the economic higher education system in Romania has started with small steps to adapt to the environmental requirements. Unfortunately, the efforts still required to be made are significant, since it is observed that all undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD require a change of attitude and mentality. Romanian public universities are more involved than private universities in the implementation of programs, projects, debates and courses on sustainable development and students’ reactions are positive.Originality/valueThis paper provides useful insights, allowing a better understanding of the role of universities in fostering sustainable development. This research is useful to find solutions for developing education for sustainable development in Romania and it can be a starting point for ESD programs and policies.

The WHS Designation—A Factor of Sustainable Tourism Growth for Romanian Rural Areas?

The presence of World Heritage Sites has been frequently used as a mean of tourism promotion and increased attractiveness. However, previous studies showed contradictory results regarding the territorial impact of World Heritage Sites, and very few researchers discussed their impact in Eastern Europe. This paper examines how the presence of World Heritage Sites in rural localities influenced the tourism growth and sustainable development in Romania after 2000. Independent Sample t-test was used to analyse the evolution of tourism and sustainable development indicators between 2001 and 2016. The results suggest an absence of a positive effect induced by World Heritage Sites in rural areas. It seems that, by itself, the brand has not enough power to sustain tourist attractiveness if it is not endorsed by national, regional, and local initiatives. These findings lead a discussion about how certain sites managed to induce a sustained tourism growth while others failed to do so.

Eco-Innovation and Service Activities in the Context of Sustainable Development in Romania

Eco-innovation and sustainability are two concepts that follow the same driving direction in the sense that it determines each other having as purpose a decrease of the impact way of production on the environment by increasing the resistance of nature to environmental pressures and, not least, by obtaining a use of natural resources in an efficient and responsible way. The action of all stakeholders and all economic sectors in reducing aggression on the environment are increasingly asserting more stringent if there are taken into consideration the climate change or diminishing resources and biodiversity, eco-innovation being seen as an opportunity for businesses of any kind and with any object of activity. Service activities can be the beneficiaries of eco-innovation through the emergence and development of high-tech services. But, need to be aware also of the role they play in the environmental protection, in this way exemplifying a small part of them, namely: services of research and development leading to products and innovative services, sanitation services, waste management services where ecology is already a brand presentation and we refer here to ecological tourism services, etc. All these issues can lead to increased quality of life and create new jobs, for which we intend to analyze how can influence healthy to each other two actual concepts namely service activities, innovation and ecology. We also follow to determine how eco-innovation can contribute to the development of innovative services and together can reduce the adverse environmental effects by promoting healthy development and a sustainable economy. In order to achieve the objectives proposed, we analyzed the main literature on this subject and used descriptive statistical methods for interpreted the statistical data available in the official databases. The results of this study establish the relationship between eco-innovation, services, and sustainable development on the one hand, as to identify the place of Romania in the Eco- Innovation Scoreboard - Eco-IS in the European context and the exact situation existing in Romania in relation to support services for the ecoinnovation process, on the other hand.

IT&C used by Individuals and Economic Development in Romania - Application of Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model

IT&C used by Individuals and Economic Development in Romania - Application of Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model

Sustainable Balneo Tourism Development in Romania - evaluation and strategic tasks

Introduction. Applied aspect of the research seeks to maximize the economic exploitation of natural resources for health needs in a sustainable manner. Aging with all the subsequent socio-demographic and bio-medical consequences is a priority area for our modern society and as a solution, balneotherapy and medical rehabilitation are claimed to respond to the main healthy issues of this priority. Balneotherapy is acting by three main ways: thermally, mechanically and chemically. We suggest that the joint use perspective of natural therapeutic factors and physiotherapy with new robotic assistive interventions might increase the clinical importance of balneal resorts, and also include the modern trend of availing robotic assistive equipment to the benefit of patients.

Wooden Orthodox churches in the Maramureș region - opportunities and threats of tourism development

This article is an attempt to determine, analyse and evaluate the most urgent problems of tourism development in Romania illustrated by the case of the Maramures region. The fieldwork was carried out in the period of 2013-2017. Not only basic statistical analyses regarding tourist traffic in Romania and the region have been done, but also literature studies allowing to evaluate the scale of the problems. The Maramures regions is a real living open-air museum despite growing tourist traffic, located in the northern part of the country. Wooden Orthodox churches with high steeples are especially remarkable. In 1999, eight of them were included on the UNESCO List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage due to their uniqueness. However, this extraordinary world of wooden architecture and cultural heritage is being under pressure from increasing tourist traffic. Determining the most burning development problems of this region is the main objective of this study. The authors carried out a SWOT analysis aimed at determining opportunities and threats of tourism development, as it has been stated in the article title.

Arguments for the need of mining education continuity and development in Romania

Mining is considered the oldest conscious man activity. In the beginning, man searched for hard rocks in the outskirts area and used it to make weapons and ornaments. Subsequently, civilizations evolved through the development of infrastructure, buildings and monuments and finally, weapons. For all these it was necessary to have mineral raw materials obtained under increasingly difficult conditions, through increasingly evolved techniques. In this way, the art of mining and metallurgy was born, which led to the formation of scientific bases. The mining activity was equally art and science. The art and the science have been learned and taught in schools since ancient times and continue today in large universities with mining engineering, metallurgy, mining topography, mining environmental protection, and geology. Lately, in Romania, the mining high school has reached a deadlock and the middle and professional school has collapsed. The development of infrastructure, construction, etc. requires the exploitation and valorisation of mineral resources based on specialists. The paper warns against the danger of losing tradition and skills in mining engineers formation and militate for the re-establishment of professional and technical schools.

A benchmarking analysis of the economic development in Romania and Czech Republic

A higher economic development is a goal of every country which is interested in assuring a higher living standard to its citizens. Nevertheless the reality reveals big differences between countries even inside the same economic community. Our research starts from such a problem which finds Romania one of the less developed countries in European Union. Aiming at a benchmarking analysis between Romania and Czech Republic we found that the economic development could be related to public policies that should be oriented towards a better spending of money on economic and social purposes.

Offshore Wind Power Plant and Electrical Network Development: Romanian Case Study

AbstractThis paper presents the technical and economic interaction with the grid of an offshore wind power plant development in Romania, on the coastal area of the Black Sea. Offshore wind power pl...

Mind the Poorest: Social Housing Provision in Post-crisis Romania

This paper reflects on recent social housing developments in Romania. It understands social housing as rental social housing and affordable housing, a differentiation that is not made at the national level and introduces a sub-type of affordable housing, which is little documented in current research and is here termed ‘self-help affordable housing’. The paper looks at the legacy of socialist housing and social housing before and after the crisis. It makes an important claim that needs further investigation: current social housing provision in Romania overlooks the poorest households. This has implications for the country’s political leadership; the capacity for financial and institutional innovation; and wider strategies for policy integration.

Palliative Care in Romania

HOSPICE Casa Sperantei has been pioneering palliative care development in Romania since 1992. The have developed specialist palliative care services in home-based settings, inpatient units, day care centers, and as hospital support teams. They have provided national and international education programs for professionals in the palliative care field, as well as promoting palliative care integration in the health care system. Legislative improvements were adopted, including funding mechanisms for the reimbursement of palliative care services through the health insurance funds, review of opioid policy, and quality standards of care. By the end of 2015, Romania had 115 specialist palliative care services (78 palliative care inpatient units, 24 home-based palliative care services, five outpatient palliative care clinics, four day care centers, and four hospital support teams). A palliative care subspecialty for doctors was recognized as early as 2000, and a multidisciplinary master's degree program has been available at Transilvania University since 2010, when the first palliative care academic position was established. Nursing education includes mandatory palliative care modules in nursing schools. For coordinated development of palliative care at the national level, a national strategy was proposed defining three levels of palliative care provision, local, district, and national. The implementation of the palliative care strategy is partially funded through a World Bank loan.

The role of tourism in socio-economic development of Romania

The role of tourism in socio-economic development of Romania

Green Energy for Sustainable Development in Romania�s Economy

Based on representative energy indicators, this study examines the need to adopt Green Energy Economy in Romania, in relation to the economic activity and demographic changes. The data used are the main energy indicators (the CO2 emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, the renewable energy consumption and the consumption of biofuel), the intensity of energy in economy, and the population number. The methodology consists in a quantitative analysis in EViews program. The results� interpretation will take into account that Romania has to continue to reduce the intensity of energy, by increasing the energy efficiency, focusing mainly on energy technologies with low-carbon.

Renewable energy: A way for a sustainable development in Romania

ABSTRACTThe development of renewable energy sources is justified by keeping a clean environment, by assurance of energy security, by job creation, all these contributing to sustainable economic growth. The paper presents the development level of renewable energy sector in Romania and the benefits of its extension, starting from the potential of Romania in this field. From natural point of view, Romania has a high potential for development of renewable energy, in the hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass fields. The research results show that even if there are certain limitations in expansion of this field, the natural potential and the advantages obtained by development of renewable energy sources require continued investments and public–private efforts to support it.

Crackdown on tax evasion – improving ways of coordination between the tax authorities and automatic exchange of information developments in Romania

Abstract In an effort to reduce the tax transparency and banking secrecy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) has been taking the lead on the battle against cross-border tax evasion, seconded by the Internal Revenue Services (“IRS”) of the United States of America (“USA”), the G20 and the European Commission. Understanding the power that is brought by information and knowledge, the international community proposed adapting the exchange of information tools that were available to them and extending them to a worldwide level. As a result, the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) reporting standards were born. This paper aims at analyzing the improvements in automatic exchange of information brought by the CRS and FATCA standards, together with its limitations. An important section of this paper shall be dedicated to the role that Romania plays in the international efforts of fighting tax evasion, together with the tools and procedures developed in order to sustain the reporting standards. In order to analyze the effects of the CRS and FATCA, it is essential to understand the pros and the cons of the international cooperation on tax matters and its available tools before the CRS and FATCA were created. As there is limited previous literature on the subject, the methodology of the research will consist mainly of analyzing the guidelines issued by the international public body representatives and of the current legislative framework. The main finding of the paper can be considered the fact that the new developments in the automatic exchange of information field can represent a huge step forward towards limiting the tax evasion activity, however, one should be reserved due to aspects such as compliance costs, protection of private information, data gathering and processing techniques and tax residency uncertainty. Further analysis is required when the automatic exchange of information results will be available in order to update the reservations of the paper.

Romanian Rural Tourism: A Survey of Accommodation Facilities

Urban areas have been long since considered important tourism destinations. By offering a broad and heterogeneous range of attractions, urban tourism provide various choices for different types of tourists and segments of tourism market. Despite being considered an important form of tourism world-wide (Ashworth & Page, 2011), the aggregate volume and value of urban tourism remain unknown at global level (Heeley, 2015). In Romania also, urban tourism is also dominant from tourist arrivals viewpoint. Though, the official documents concerning tourism development in Romania do not include an integrated vision on urban tourism. The present paper discusses the evolution of urban tourism accommodation facilities in Romania's urban areas between 2005 and 2016 at national and regional level and offers a complete picture of urban tourism evolution over a decade. The study includes all the officially registered lodgings, as they appear in the official database offered by the central authority for tourism, including 40 counties and 7 development regions. Furthermore, the survey includes all the types of accommodation facilities registered in urban areas and the whole range of lodging capacities, including the category of 1 to 4 rooms not taken into consideration by the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). The study also provides a profile of the lodging facilities for the Romanian urban localities. The present study complements the previous study of Pop et al. (2017) and use the same structure for presenting the data in order to allow the comparison between urban and rural tourist accommodation facilities development between urban and rural areas in 2005 and 2016.

Efficiency Versus Equality In Regional Development Policy: The Case Of Romania

Researchers in the field of regional economy but also geographers have long been concerned about the problems caused by uneven regional development and how it can be reduced by appropriate regional policies. Recently, however, the traditional argument of regional policy to reduce the spatial concentration of economic activity in certain regions, in order to achieve economic efficiency and social justice at national level was questioned. The controversy is the fact that regional imbalance, i.e. spatial agglomeration or concentration of economic activity and workers in certanin regions, can be effective for the entire national's economic performance, generating growth. It follows that policies which seek to reduce regional economic disparities can be ineffective nationwide. This causes a compromise (trade-off) of political intervention, between maximizing national growth and minimizing regional inequalities. This idea has attracted the attention and interest of researchers and practitioners, and the success in empirical testing does go beyond the stage of idea, theory came to be known as the trade-off of regional policy. The theory holds that regional imbalance expresssed by concentrating economic activity and workers in certain particular regions, may be beneficial for national economic performance, generating growth. The paper aims to examine the new trade-off theory in Romania, investigating to what extent clusters supported by the industrial policy of the past two decades have led to national economic growth, but at the same time, increased regional inequalities. The authors aim to analyze the spatial concentration of economic activity in Romania and the competitiveness of the eight Romanian development regions (NUTS 2) in terms of cluster's performance and correlate the results with national growth and inequality. The period chosen for the study (8 years, between 2006 and 2013) is significant for the proposed analisys, because it overlaps the development in Romania of industrial competitive clusters supporting policy. The analysis uses data from the Eurostat database, Romanian Cluster Association, Regional Competitiveness Index 2013 and maping clustering studies in Romania. Research limitations are related to the availability of statistical data on the performance of Romanian clusters. How to cite: Clipa, R.I., Bostan, I., & Clipa, F. (2017). Efficiency Versus Equality in Regional Development Policy: the Case of Romania. European Journal of Law and Public Administration , 4(1), 55-67. https://doi.org/10.18662/eljpa/06

The Politics of Mobilizing Local Resources for Growth: ‘Urban Areas’ in Romania

AbstractIn this paper I argue that sociology was a key discipline in producing relevant knowledge for managing and reimagining the socialist economic development in Romania. It played a central role in placing economic development at the subnational level, since much of the everyday economics unfolded at the level of the regions, which formed around the emerging cities. I analyse the birth of the ‘urban area’, an academic concept and a policy tool, as it was developed by Miron Constantinescu and his associate Henry H. Stahl. This was the main device that shifted economic growth to the subnational level and allowed the planners to regulate the economy as a set of inter-connected production chains. Sociology was disbanded as an academic discipline in 1948; nonetheless, through the figure of Miron Constantinescu, a key member of the Political Bureau between 1945-1957, it remained a central producer of knowledge through complex institutional arrangements, put in place in the 1950s. These institutions employed sociological figures from the inter-war sociological establishment. Their methodological skills and theoretical endeavours were put to work in applied research. I argue that some strategic developmentalist policies in socialist Romania were strongly shaped by the reworking in Marxist terms of certain key ideas of the Gustian school of a ‘sociology of the nation’.

Tourism Pressure at the Regional Level in the Context of Sustainable Development in Romania

Tourism, through its components, can be found in all areas that relate to sustainable development principles. Although it should be encouraged due to the multiplier effect that it has in the development of a region, it creates pressure on the surrounding environment like any other economic activity in the process of specific potential capitalization. This paper is aimed at determining the degree of tourism pressure, its trend and impact on tourism’s sustainable development and the Romanian economy. When this pressure exceeds the ecological support capacity, negative effects occur, both on the landscape in general, and on certain tourist objectives, in particular. The assessment of this pressure and its most accurate quantification imply the use, calculation, correlation and interpolation of indicators that may summarize certain aspects related to the density of tourist fittings, tourist traffic intensity and capitalization level. Hence, the approach would be considered regionally and in terms of tourism pressure dynamics, depending on the structure of available statistical data, as well as to get a clearer picture. The authors used methods specific to geography, as well as statistical and econometric methods. The interdependence between tourism, tourism pressure and sustainability is described in the Central region. The results and observations determined with reference to the factors and indicators shown underlie the coordination of the tourism activity in the other regions according to the processes of sustainability and tourism pressure mitigation.