Productivity and the Regional Employment in Services. Econometric Estimations for Romania

Between 1989 and 2006, in Romania the labour force decreased by about 2.6 mill. persons (with regional differences), but, according to the same general tendency, the labour force in services increased by about 0.5 mill. persons. This occurred in a time when the prices in services increased more rapidly as compared to the ones in the national economy. In the paper, we found that the growth in total income leads to growth of the demand for services, so that the increase rate of services outmarch the amplification of productivity, the end-result being a growth of the employment in that sector. Also, even if in Romanian regions the demand for services is inelastic regarding the total income of the households and the dynamics of productivity in services was lower than the average of the national economy, the positive growth rate of employment in services exceeded the productivity gap between the national economy and the services sector.labour productivity, regional employment, price elasticity and income elasticity of demand for services

Analysis of Municipal Election Outcomes in Romania

In Romania, the 2008 local elections were held based on a new electoral law. The main changes concerned the election of chairpersons of county councils by uninominal voting, shifting of the general and presidential elections and the introduction of a uninominal voting system for parliamentary elections, with a correction of the total number of seats according to the total number of votes obtained by each party on national level. Voting behavior in local elections on 1st June 2008 was primarily determined by political reasons (loyal voters) and was influenced by the effect of the local leaders and the noise produced by ethnic vote. For all parties, prominent leaders drew votes. Inertia in voting behavior (electorate’s fidelity) influenced all parties’ results and the ethnic behavior had a strong effect on nationalist parties. At regional level, the electoral impact of economic variables was marginal.

Economic Impact of Political Cycles – The Relevance of European experinces for Romania

The research was dedicated to the analysis of the interactions between political processes and economic activities. Explicitly, the research focussed on the theoretical and empirical study concerning the economic impact of political cycles and, especially, to evaluate the relevance of European experiences for Romania. The analysis was focused to the following subjects: to overview the existent literature on the interactions between political processes and economic activities – political implications of the economic status (the so-called vote – popularity function), and economic impact of the political behaviours – the political business cycles (section 1); to analyse specific features of the vote – popularity functions and the political business cycles in the developed economies and, especially, in the European Union Countries, by over viewing relevant empirical studies (section 2); to survey the literature concerning models and empirical evidences of the interactions between political processes and economic activity for the developing countries (section 3) and for the East European Candidate Countries (section 4); to analyse the interactions between the political processes and the economic dynamics in Romania – macroeconomic signals of the political business cycles, and estimation of regional vote-popularity function (section 5); to discuss the consequences of political business cycles for the processes of transition and the European integration (section 6).

REGIONAL ECONOMIC VOTING IN ROMANIA

In the paper we examine the economic voting theory for the Romanian local elections in June, 2008. Econometrically, we demonstrate that in the regional structures the main economic variables (dynamics of the gross domestic product per capita, rate of unemployment, dynamics of the average net nominal monthly earnings, etc.) do not significantly influence the voting behaviour, so that a model based on the esponsibility hypothesis is not adequate for explaining the creation of voting preferences in the Romanian regional structures in the June 2008 elections. We also demonstrate that for the June 2008 local elections the hypothesis of partisan voting cannot be econometrically supported. As a consequence, we have conceived a political impact model. Therefore, we have tested the hypothesis of faithful voters between two consecutive electoral moments, the engine role played by the well-known leaders, and the impact of the ethnic behaviour on the electoral space of the political party.Political Business Cycles, Vote Popularity Function, Partisan and/or Opportunistic Behaviour, Residuals in Regional Econometric Models

The Romanian Regions Competitiveness

Over the latest years, the issue of competitiveness has been the subject a lot of studies. Even if many of them have tended to concentrate on countries or industries, there are remarkable studies concerning the regions competitiveness (for example, 6th Periodic Report of the EU regions). In this paper we are providing an extension to the Romanian regions of the European Commission analysis focused on EU region competitiveness. Certainly, because of the lack of reliable data on the different aspects that determine overall competitiveness, any analysis can only be partial. However, as in the Commission studies, in Romania four factors emerged as being closely linked with regional differences in the competitiveness: the structure of economic activity (the division of employment between agriculture, manufacturing, construction and services), the extent of innovative activity (employees from research activity), regional accessibility (transport infrastructure) and the skills of the work force (training level). 21. DEFINING REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS The concept of competitiveness is relatively clear when applied to enterprises, but i

Analysis of Municipal Election Outcomes in Romania

In Romania, the 2008 local elections were held based on a new electoral law. The main changes concerned the election of chairpersons of county councils by uninominal voting, shifting of the general and presidential elections and the introduction of a uninominal voting system for parliamentary elections, with a correction of the total number of seats according to the total number of votes obtained by each party on national level. Voting behavior in local elections on 1st June 2008 was primarily determined by political reasons (loyal voters) and was influenced by the effect of the local leaders and the noise produced by ethnic vote. For all parties, prominent leaders drew votes. Inertia in voting behavior (electorate's fidelity) influenced all parties' results and the ethnic behavior had a strong effect on nationalist parties. At regional level, the electoral impact of economic variables was marginal

Inter-industries productivity gap and the services employment dynamics

The dynamics of employment in final services depends on a set of economic, social and cultural factors. On the other hand, the increase in the population incomes (and the influence of some national factors) leads to an increase in the demand for services. However, the relatively poor productivity (Baumol, Blackman and Wolff, 1989) also determines the increase in prices, this evolution leading to a decrease in the demand for services. In the paper, the conditions in which the effect induced by the demand-income elasticity over the dynamics of the services surpasses the substitution effect generated by the demand-price elasticity are analyzed so that the growth rate of the production in the service sector is higher than the growth rate of the productivity in the same sector. From the different evolution of the two variables results the long-term growth of the share of employment in services in the total employment at the national level.Labor productivity, employment, services, price elasticity and income elasticity of demand for services

THE IMPACT OF COMPENSATION PAYMENTS ON EMPLOYMENT, IN REGIONAL STRUCTURES

Compensation payments are considered active labour market policies designed to increase efficiency, to mitigate unemployment and to sustaining employment. We tested this hypothesis for the period 1993-2013, in territorial structures (42 counties) through a dynamic panel model (confirmed by Granger causality tests – Toda-Yamamoto version), and by means of error correction model. We found that the dynamics of regional employment are positively related to expenditure incurred for active policies and there are negatively correlated with the ratio between the unemployment average indemnity (and support allowance) and the average net nominal monthly salary earnings. But, the connexion between employment and compensation payments converges extremely slowly for a long-term stable relationship

Environmental Kuznets curve. Evidence from Romania

The definition of the environmental Kuznets curve is a hypothesized relationship between certain indicators of environmental degradation and income per capita. It has an inverse U shape which shows that pollution increases initially as a country develops its industry and thereafter declines after reaching a certain level of economic development. This paper tries to offer a critical description of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, to identify what kind of good is the environmental quality and to see if the data available from Romania verify the relationship between environmental quality and income per capita