External Competitiveness of the Romanian Regions and Counties

The paper approaches some of the issues regarding the external competitiveness of the Romania regions and counties, by the means of the competitive advantage concept and by providing answers to the questions: (i) Which are the regions and counties that contributemost to the countriy's exports? (ii), Which are the economic sectors/groups of products in which these regions/counties are (eventually) specialized? and (iii) Which are the comprtitive advantages of those regions/counties (if they exist)? The results point out to a significant presence of the analized regions and counties in three groups of manufacturing industries: low skilled, labor-intensive; natural resource-intensive and medium-to-high skilled, more sophisticated ones, and aldo to increased export concentration/specialization in/of certain regions and counties.

Keywords: regional competitiveness, comparative advantage, export specialization, territorial imbalances
JEL Classification: F14, O18, R12