ECONOMIC AND communal DISPARITIES OF ROMANIA

Economic and social disparities of Romania

ABSTRACT

Romania's accession to the European Union enforces a new way of approaching the financial and social disparities existing nowadays both at the grade of the eight development regions of the homeland and at the grade of shires as well. The investigation of the level and evolution of these disparities can be helpful to all the components that design and put into perform schemes intended to stop the gaps widening on one hand and to load up the existing breaches among the Romanian development regions on the other hand. All these investigate are made from the perspective of Romania's method of integration into the European Union's structures.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DISPARITIES OF ROMANIA

Introduction

We have chosen the Principal Components Analysis as the main method of analyzing the existent differences in regional and county profile. According to some sets of significant economic and social variables, there have been designed models that reveal the simultaneity of the correlations among these variables; this allows the examination of phenomena on their whole by considering a reduced number of factors (Dostal - 2010). In every plane, determined by the principal components there are positioned the regions or counties in order to measure and visualize the amplitude of existent differences. The results of this positioning are to be found in qualitative conclusions correlated to quantitative determinations. For every model and analysis, the correlation among data and the adequate nature of the main factors was validated by using specific statistical tests (Giurgi 2010).

The values of all the variables used in the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) were calculated per capita or they are relative values, in order to eliminate the effects of the region's size and to allow a real analysis of the disparities. The data used in analyses are the most recently published in official statistics, being mainly gathered at the level of year 2006. The research of economic and social disparities is made in regional profile by analyzing all the eight development regions and in county profile, on a sample comprising the most developed county and two of the least developed counties within every of the eight development regions. These regions were established through the Law no. 151/1998. (Giurgi - 2010,)

Romania's accession to the European Union imposes a new way of approaching the economic and social disparities existing nowadays both at the level of the eight development regions of the country and at the level of counties as well. The analysis of the level and evolution of these disparities can be useful to all the factors that design and put into practice strategies meant to stop the gaps widening on one hand and to fill the existing gaps among the Romanian development regions on the other hand. All these analyses are made from the perspective of Romania's process of integration into the European Union's structures.

Discussion

Economic and social disparities at the level of the eight development regions

The general levels of regions' development are decisively determined by their economic ...