Analysis of the potential of the R & D sector to generate a competitive advantage on a national level

Even though globalization tends to minimize the importance of national borders, there is yet a strong competition ongoing between nations. In this competition, it’s those countries that manage create and develop a series of long-term competitive advantages that eventually thrive. In the case of Romania, the R & D sector could represent a real „engine” of economic development, particularly at this stage where we can no longer rely on being competitive in terms of low labor cost. We have to focus on creating and delivering products and services of high added value which, obviously, implies having a high throughput from the R&D sector. Starting from these premises, this paper seeks to identify the impact of increasing the R&D expenses on the gross domestic product, in order to understand if this sector can truly generate a series of competitive advantages on a regional level. This link was analyzed based on the correlation factor between the two variables and the identification of the regression function. Several countries and regions have been referred to, for an increased degree of relevance of the study.