Transition in Romania. Questions and answers.
The answers addressed questions, such as:
1. Why the decrease in GDP was so high after the first ten year of transition in Romania as compared to the other transition countries? It is a problem linked to the national accounts’ measuring methodology or to the efficient allocation of resources (the economic policy options through which the efficient allocation of resources was postponed had a contribution to the decrease in GDP)?
2. If we consider transition as a process of reallocation of the resources such as persons with entrepreneurship can ensure their most efficient utilization, then in which proportion is necessary the phasing of reforms conceived by the international institutions, which firstly suppose macrostabilization and afterwards the development at the microeconomic level? Moreover, if the market mechanisms - the only ones that can decide whether an entrepreneur is efficient or not - are not established in the first instance, then who decides at the beginning of transition which activities are efficient and on the basis of which principle?
3. If one may consider, generally speaking, that the capital increase in a broad sense (as an efficient utilisation) is a condition of economic growth, what chances has Romania to catch up with the UE countries, keeping in mind the facts that no one does exactly know the level of the fixed capital in the Romanian economy and that the level of investments is small?
4. Which will be the structure of the Romanian economy considering the facts that currently it is dominated by large foreign capitals that do not reinvest their profits, that it imports large amounts of commodities and is the main employer and the domestic capital is concentrated in small and medium-sized enterprises with low profitability rates that create a small number of jobs?
5. Has the functioning of the monetary market influenced the inflation development in Romania? How do you characterize the impact of the gradual liberalisation upon inflation and social costs of restructuring as compared to a shock therapy? Would have be easier to absorb the effects of a shock therapy?