After joining CEFTA in 1997, Romania established a relatively stable group of partner countries for its agri-food trade. Several factors contributed to the stability in time of this group, firstly the existence or establishment of preferential trade agreements, the geographical proximity, and...

For several decades advanced economies have been undergoing a profound structural change. Its main characteristic appears to be the progressive decline of industry as the driving force of economy. The propulsory role once played by the manufacturing industry seems to have been replaced by the...

The last decades have witnessed the rise of a new wave of economic regionalism, the most remarkable example of which is the European Union. Regional economic integration is generally interpreted either as an attempt to resist the centrifugal forces of globalisation by strenghtening economic ties...

In the post-accession period, a common feature of the international agri-food trade of the new Member States was a significant increase in the volume and value of export and import flows, thus contributing to the increase in intra- and extra-Community trade. Despite these increases in total...

The accumulation of the human capital stock plays a key role to explain the economic performance across regions. However, empirical evidence for this claim has been not very convincing, probably due to low quality of the data. This paper provides a robustness analysis of alternative human...

The degree of comovement of economic activity across states or regions is an issue of utmost importance to policymakers. Asymmetric business cycles are often seen as an impediment to the formation of a common currency area. However, it has been argued that a common monetary policy in itself...

In the last two decades, due to falling barriers to trade and investment, the world economic scenario has profoundly changed. Few rich countries (United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands) have been securing a substantial stake in worldwide production...

Romania's accession to the European Union meant the free access of its agri-food products on the European Single market, without tariff barriers or export quotas, as well as a better access on the international markets. At the same time, it meant the free access on the Romanian market of...