Regional Economic Competitiveness. The Case of Romania

The paper approaches the issue of regional competitiveness in Romania, focusing on simple tools for analysis, namely the shift-share analysis (introduced by Dunn in 1960) and specific competitiveness indicators: RCA, RCA1 and RCA2. As documented in the literature, the level of such indicators and the changes that occur in their levels are key factors for an analysis of economic and social performance at regional and sub-regional levels (D’Elia, 2005; Chilian, 2012; Iordan et al., 2014; Pelinescu et.al.., 2015). The classical form of shift-share analysis chosen by the authors envisages to “divide†the dynamics of a certain growth factor in a certain region into three components: national, sectoral and regional. Given such issues, by using the sectoral shift-share analysis of exports completed by the indices-based competitiveness analysis in the paper will be identified the regions of Romania which reveal dynamics of their economic structures conducing to high levels of external competitiveness (and, thus, to a higher degree of integration into the European Single Market), and to sustainable specializations, adequate to the requirements of building a modern economy, with high flexibility and high technological level.