EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF ROMANIA'S COMPETITIVENESS WITH A FOCUS ON EDUCATION AND R&D. EVOLUTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

Competitiveness reveals a nation economic health. Due to the concept's complexity and precision in building a country's performance, the theory is nowadays a sine-qua-non-objective among policymakers, scientists and businesses. The present paper illustrates Romania's competitiveness performance for the aggregated 2007-2019 period. The results were obtained by adopting a quantitative approach. Data were extracted from the World Bank Database, covering the years 2008-2018, and the IMD World Competitiveness Online Database, covering the 2010-2019 period. Further, based on the obtained results, the author proposes recommendations to stimulate the country's competitiveness level. According to the analysis, Romania recorded a stable increase in competitiveness' evolution starting with 2014. In 2017, the country was positioned behind Spain, Italy, Poland and Hungary, and registered a better performance than Croatia. Regarding the total public expenditure on education per student, Romania is placed at the end of the European top, together with Ukraine, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Greece. Moreover, Romania is largening the European gap concerning Research and Development (R&D). On top are countries such as Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria, while at the opposite pole, there are the following nations: Romania, Cyprus, and Ukraine. Balanced growth is supported by the collaboration of governments, research institutions, universities, and the private sector. Investments must be orientated towards education, R&D, efficiency in production, education, the country's openness, and attractiveness for foreign markets. Considering the circumstances of the worldwide chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital for Romania's economy to strengthen its competitiveness performance to safeguard sustainable long-run economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]