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

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

INVESTMENT IN HUMAN CAPITAL - AN INVESTMENT IN FUTURE

The paper aims to study, reveal and understand one of the most important production factor, considered by some as being labor, understood nowadays as human capital. It is important to reveal and to demonstrate that the investment into human capital will have results with a very high return on investment, maybe not so seen in the first years to come just after the investment, but for sure as a big result and a cause for economic development. The investment into human capital can be determined by public or private investment. Either the case the result will be in favor of the national economyinvestment, human capital, economic development, labor flows

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

Econometric Evidences of Political Business Cycles in Romania during the socialist regime and after

In this paper we analyse the link between politics and economics in Romania under the socialist regime and during the first years of democracy. To investigate th is relationship, we focus on how the electoral moments (election's dates for Great National Assembly) or political events (years of Communist Party Congresses) are related to the change of economic performance between 1960 and 1989. For the situation after the Revolution in 1989, we analyse the regional evidences

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

THE USE OF BLOCKCHAINS. AN R APPROACH

The cryptocurrency is a hot topic and understanding the blockchain is very important. Also, understanding what blockchain may lead to more decentralized services and applications to be used, not only in relation to financial applications. Today, blockchains can be used to for smart contracts, decentralized networks, governments and non-profit organizations, banks and even photography copyright recordings and smart contracts for music artists. Even World Economic Forum predicted that by 2015 about 10% of global GDP will be stored on blockchain technology. The blockchain technology cosists in creating a chain of blocks, validated with a hash function and under a “proof of work” concept, which limits speed of creating new blocks. The new technology is open source, but recently has attracted the attention of big software players, like Microsoft and other companies (BBVA, UBS). In this paper, we present a simple R implementation of a blockchain, containing a initial block, creation of each blocks (including hash and proof of work) and the creation of the chain. Data validation and the lack of so-called middle man, minimization of the fees, increasing the speed of transactions, security and anonymity provided by this technology are good arguments for ensuring the continuous development of the technology and its spreading in everyday activities

ECONOMETRIC DETERMINATION OF VOTING BEHAVIOUR

In this paper, we are testing the responsive hypothesis: if the economy is growing strongly and unemployment is low, the incumbent party has a very good chance of retaining office. When the economy is faltering, voters will more likely vote for change. We use econometric models for forecasting, based on economic data, the voter's choices and the evolution of the economy under the influence of political pressure

NEW TRENDS IN ECONOMIC FORECASTING

Economic forecasting is a dynamic domain. New methods are developed and tested and the methodology needs to be updated according to economic reality. Classical approach in methodology must be completed with latest trends in econometric analysis and the forecasting methods have to benefit from the increasing computational power of the modern software. One of the main causes of false prediction is using altered data. In this paper, we will present the new concepts for data testing, adjusted for the Romanian economy, based on Benford's law