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Taking into account recent literature on economic growth, we focus on analyzing the extent to which metropolitan regions (NUTS3 urban predominant regions), as growth poles, especially from Romania and from EU member states and regions with similar levels of development, contribute to economic growth, from the perspective of employment-related issues. We place our analysis in the context of Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and of the urban dimension of the EU regional policies. The variables included refer to labor market indicators, in conjunction with demographic data, from Eurostat, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the contribution of growth poles to the overall development of country, in comparison with the capital region, the national average and EU27 average. The selection of growth poles from countries with similar levels of development as Romania is based on previous research results of cluster analysis for year 2010, conducted using headline indicators of Europe 2020 strategy and GDP per head, for country level, and cohesion policy indicators, for NUTS2 regional level, looking for possible overlaps of the country and regional clustering that include Romanian regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new index to quantify, measure and monitor the progress towards the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy. This index is based on a set of relevant, accepted, credible, easy to monitor and robust indicators presented by the European Commission at the time the strategy was launched. The internal analysis of the index shows that the Smart and the Inclusive growth dimensions of the strategy are strictly correlated and that the trade-offs between each of these two dimensions and the Sustainable one exist but are decreasing, suggesting that a change towards more sustainable models of development is occurring in Europe. The external analysis of the index shows that it can be a valid measure to assess the overall competitiveness of countries and that the most critical factors for this strategy to be successful are good governance and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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