DYNAMICS OF CHANGES IN ROMANIA KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Abstract: By joining the European Union, the new member states have benefited from more opportunities for interaction and knowledge transfer, which boosted the transition to the knowledge economy. This paper deals with three areas that are the drivers of KE, education, research-development-innovation and information for a selection of European countries, which are the new EU member states (NMS). It focuses on identifying the current state of growth performance in Romanian economy in relation to some of the relevant KE indicators, the main tendencies manifested in the last years and their contribution to the KE development within the EU's developing countries group. The findings of the research reveal that the Romanian economy performance in KE terms has registered a positive dynamism, but this country is not on the efficiency frontier yet, being closer rather to the middle level of development from the new EU member states.