The dynamics of wage determination in Romania

This article examines wage developments in Romania over the last 20 years, discusses the evolving role of government wage policy and structural labour market changes, and analyses the dynamics of the wage determination process. It finds that government wage policy has had a significant demonstration effect on private sector wages, driven mainly by policy decisions over the past few years. The article also finds strong causality from private sector wages to wages in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and government. No causality was found for changes in government wages to wages in SOEs or from SOE wages to private sector wages.     

Rent Seeking Behavior in Transition Countries: The Case of Romania

This paper points out, in the changing institutional setting of transition in Romania, Some relevant factors influencing economic actors to behave in a way that pushes them to devote resources to unproductive goals, rather than to embark on activities that add economic and social value. The theoretical insights offered in the literature of rent seeking are applied to the issues of transition. A mathematical model of a rent seeking economy is presented, analyzing the influence of interest groups activity on the overall income of the economy. Some examples of rent seeking behavior that severely hamper the economic efficiency are illustrated for the case of Romania. The conclusion is that, in appreciating the progress in transition, the reduction in rent seeking is an important factor to be taken into consideration.     

The selection of migrants and returnees in Romania

This paper uses census and survey data to identify the wage earning ability and the selection of recent Romanian migrants and returnees on observable characteristics. We construct measures of selection across skill groups and estimate the average and the skill‐specific premium for migration and return for three typical destinations of Romanian migrants after 1990. Once we account for migration costs, we find evidence that the selection and sorting of migrants are driven by different returns to skills in countries of destination. Our identification strategy for the effects of work experience abroad permits a cautious causal interpretation of the premium to return migration. This premium increases with migrants' skills and drives the positive selection of returnees relative to non‐migrants. Based on the compatibility of the results with rationality in the migration decisions, we simulate a rational‐agent model of education, migration and return. Our results suggest that for a source country like Romania relatively high rates of temporary migration might have positive long‐run effects on average skills and wages.     

Historical legacies in savings: Evidence from Romania

This study explores channels of savings persistence using a spatial regression discontinuity across an imperial border in present-day Romania. With data obtained from a lab in the field experiment and household survey, the findings suggest that imperial history influences savings behaviors today. I find no evidence that economic preferences for risk and time differ across the border, nor that these preferences are culturally transmitted. Rather, imperial history is strongly correlated with current financial access and asset choice, which affect savings accumulation. To confirm the robustness of these findings, I conduct falsification tests that arbitrarily move the border and also rule out several alternative mechanisms, including trust in financial institutions, financial literacy, and migration. I establish the external validity of the field experiment using nationally-representative data, which also suggests that savings legacies have important welfare consequences for the ability to mitigate household shocks. These findings highlight the role of history in under-saving, as well as the reinforcing nature of culture and institutions in shaping contemporary economic outcomes.     

Firms facing new institutions: transactional governance in Romania

How do firms respond to new institutions? This question is addressed by analyzing the determinants of firms' strategies on transactional governance, using data from a Romanian survey. Strategy variables are regressed on factors that should determine behavior according to agency and transaction-cost theories. The results suggest that strategies do not reflect the long-run efficiency considerations emphasized by theory. Behavior reflects peculiarities of transition; history, ownership, and state relations are more important in determining responses to institutions. Firms use institutions but not as predicted by theories emphasizing efficiency, suggesting that institutional reform must reflect both transitional responses and predicted long-run behavior. Journal of Comparative Economics 31 (4) (2003) 695–714.     

罗马尼亚科研院所评价体系综述

2011年,罗马尼亚政府对国家创新战略中期评估后,决定对科研院所进行评价,以提高公共科技研发资金的使用效率.通过聘请外国专家参与院所评价,在网上公布所有规章、流程和报告等办法,院所评价制度得以公平、顺利地实施.对罗马尼亚科研院所评价制度进行了综述,分析了制度实施后院所的意见和建议,以为我国科技管理部门优化科研评价体系、提高资源分配效率提供借鉴.     

Improving Environmental Performance: A Challenge for Romania

The transition process in Central and Eastern Europe was associated with growing environmental awareness. This paper analyses the determinants of pollution abatement and control expenditure at plant level in the case of Romania using survey data and a multilevel regression model. Our findings suggest that, although Romania has improved its environmental performance, formal and informal regulations are still only partially developed owing to the difficulties of economic transition, and heterogeneity across regions remains considerable.     

Macroeconomic determinants of remittances: evidence from Romania

Given the globalization of the labour market and the promotion of free movement for work, young people are looking for employment opportunities from at least two perspectives – professional careers and socio-economic benefits from employment. In developing countries, such as Romania, the labour market is less attractive, which has led to profound, numerical and structural imbalances, due to external mobility for work. Both new generations of graduates and young people aged up to 40 years, decide to work abroad as a more beneficial individual solution, i.e. remittances. The purpose of this paper is to examine the macroeconomic determinants of remittances to Romania, in order to substantiate public policies on diaspora, to adjust employment policy on the national labour market by promoting incentives to create decent, youth-friendly jobs. Using panel data model we selected several variables with potential influence on remittances level. The results demonstrate that traditional influence’s factors as distance, migration routes diaspora concentration or unemployment rate are, at present, less important than wage gap or tax rate at least for developing origin countries.     

Modelling Anti-inflationary Monetary Targeting in Romania

This paper characterises Romania's experience with anti-inflationary monetary targeting over the period 1999–2005 prior to the country's switch to inflation targeting. We uncover the National Bank of Romania's preferences, conditional on an estimated macro-model. We find that Romania's monetary targeting regime can be characterised by a concern for price stability and an additional role for smoothing of the central bank's instrument (base money growth). Exchange rate variability and output gap stability appear not to significantly enter the National Bank of Romania's objective function.     

Hardened Budget Constraints in Romania: An Approach by CGE Modeling

This study estimates the effects of hardened budget constraints on the Romanian economy and tests a market price-based policy by removing state subsidies. As most subsidies are granted to and through the energy sector, the analysis focuses on energy issues. A general equilibrium approach is used for the empirical application. The results fit the theory and show that removing subsidies contributes to eliminating distortions: energy intensity declines, the Gini coefficient drops and general welfare improves. The main effects of applying a cost recovery policy are the improvement of agents' self-financing capacity and of their investment structure. Surprisingly, production cost falls in all sectors, since cross-subsidies are removed.     

Emergency preparedness in Romania: Dynamics,shortcomings and policy proposals

Romanians were exposed in the last century to a range of natural or man-made disasters, mainly earthquakes and floods. The transition of the country from a Communist authoritarian pattern of emergency preparedness to a democratically civilian emergency system challenges the assessment of emergency preparedness and adds more complexity in designing a better and efficient system. The aim of this paper is to briefly describe the risks and institutions dealing with disasters, to assess the emergency preparedness, the uses of Knowledge Management Systems and Foresight Methodology approaches and to discover the shortcomings of the Romanian Emergency System. The empirical study designed as a reality check focuses on the perception of the local leaders of the emergency system regarding the most probable risks, and the uses and utility of long term strategic planning and foresight methodologies, using the Delphi technique. Lessons drawn from the Romanian transition could provide an interesting case study for other emerging democracies.     

Youth reservation wages in Romania: are wage expectations realistic?

Romania has been experiencing difficulties in integrating young people into the labour market in recent years. Moreover, the problem of migration is extremely acute, young people being the most eager to leave the country. Considering also the demographics – declining birth-rates and an aging population, the risk of imbalance is extremely high. Thus, it is important to design strategies targeting young people, helping them find quality jobs so they contribute to the sustainable growth and development of the Romanian economy. In this context, the paper aims to identify the determinants of youth reservation wages and to analyse whether youth wage expectations are too high and prevent the acceptance of available jobs. The article contributes to the explanation of youth unemployment by analysing their behaviour, complementing the existing studies that focus mainly on macroeconomic and institutional factors. The results indicated that young unemployed people really have high reservation wages, expecting more than we estimated to earn on the market, considering their personal characteristics. The main factors influencing their reservation wage are: age, gender, education, intention to emigrate, duration of unemployment, and friends’ wages.     

The relationship between exchange rates and interest rates in a small open emerging economy: The case of Romania

This paper revisits the relationship between interest rates and exchange rates in a small open emerging economy using wavelet-based methodologies. Based on data for Romania, our results confirm the theoretical predictions on the interest rate - exchange rate relationship during turmoil or policy changes. In the short term, the relationship is negative, confirming the sticky-price models, and over the long term, the relationship is positive, confirming the Purchasing Power Parity theory. At the beginning of the turmoil, the exchange rate movements generally take the lead over the interest rates for the first month, but the monetary authorities take the lead afterwards. Our results reveal that in a small open emerging economy with a direct inflation targeting monetary policy regime, the relationship between exchange rates and interest rate is fundamentally different from that in an advanced economy. Also, our results stress the necessity that the central bank must pay simultaneous attention to both variables in order to achieve their monetary policy targets.     

Rural development and financial markets in Romania

In the transition from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, such as in Romania, the domestic financial market plays two important roles. First, the financial market itself must be fundamentally restructured. Second, its efficient functioning is a crucial precondition for economic transformation. In transition economies, however, financial market institutions tend to concentrate their services on urban or larger rural enterprises. So far, small rural enterprises, even those with profitable investment plans, often do not have access to the financial market. This paper briefly characterizes the key issues of agricultural production units and their institutional environment and analyzes the depth and the efficiency of rural finance and its effect on Romania's rural economic transformation. It concludes with policy and institutional recommendations to strengthen rural finance.     

An Assessment of Fiscal Sustainability in Romania

This article analyses Romanian fiscal policy during the 1990s with the main emphasis on the aspect of sustainability of the budget situation. First, the study presents the general development of Romania's economy during the transition period as background for the subsequent policy analysis. Second, the problems of quasi-fiscal subsidies and payment arrears which led to very large quasi-fiscal deficits are highlighted. In the next step, a macroeconomic model is introduced to assess the degree of fiscal sustainability starting with the inter-temporal government budget constraint. The overall deficit for the general government, including central and local governments as well as other institutions belonging to the non-financial public sector, is computed using official statistics. The research findings suggest that Romania has followed an unsustainable fiscal policy in the transition period, particularly up to 1996. In the first half of the 1990s the government financed the deficit partly through seignorage and tried to deal with immediate pressures, preventing social dissatisfaction but neglecting long-term targets. The situation has improved slightly in recent years, nevertheless, there is still much to be done in this area.     

Evaluating active labor market programs in Romania

Using unusually rich (for transition economies) follow-up survey data and propensity score matching techniques, this paper seeks to increase our knowledge on what active labor market programs (ALMPs) work in South-East European countries by providing estimates of the effects of four ALMPs implemented in Romania in the late 1990 s. We find that three programs (training and retraining, self-employment assistance, and public employment and relocation services) had success in improving participants’ economic outcomes. In contrast, public employment was found detrimental for the employment prospects of its participants. Our sensitivity analysis also finds evidence that, in the case of training and retraining, self-employment assistance, and public employment and relocation services, operators “cream off” the most qualified candidates among the unemployed; whereas public employment seems to be used as a regional policy by “bringing work to the workers”, that is, creating jobs in high unemployment regions.     

The money demand and the loss of interest for the euro in Romania

We generalize a money demand micro-founded model to explain Romanians’ recent loss of interest for the euro. We show that the reason behind this loss of interest is a severe decline in the relative degree of the euro liquidity against that of the Romanian leu. Our empirical findings also suggest that the two currencies are rather complements than substitutes, providing thus evidence for a reduced level of monetary integration of Romania with the Euro area. These results put into question the interest for the euro adoption in the next period.     

从国家到市场:罗马尼亚医疗保障制度的改革

1989年东欧剧变之后,罗马尼亚国家保障型的医疗制度已无法适应转轨之后变化了的社会、政治和经济形势.20世纪90年代末期,为了改善人口的健康状况、提高资源的使用效率、转变医患关系、提高医患双方的满意度,罗马尼亚对其医疗保障制度进行了重大改革,在筹资模式、管理模式、经营方式、成本效益方面实现了四个“转变”.改革取得了一定的成效,市场因素得到强化,但今后面临的挑战仍很严峻.