Capitalul în România postcomunistă [Capital in Post-communist Romania]

• Published in: Romanian journal of European affairs Vol. 19; no. 2; pp. 131 - 136
• Main Authors: Dobrescu, Paul, Ciocea, Mălina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bucuresti European Institute of Romania 01-12-2019
• Subjects: Capital; Capitalism; Communism; Competition; Competitiveness; Developing countries; Economic activity; Economic crisis; Economic development; Economic growth; Exports; GDP; Gross Domestic Product; Inequality; Inflation; LDCs; Macroeconomics; Money; Neoliberalism; Piketty, Thomas; Postcommunist societies; Privatization; Public policy; Society; Value added; Romania
• ISSN: 1582-8271; 1841-4273

This book is arguably the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the crucial process of Romania's post-communist transition. The author defines capital broadly, not just in terms of volume of money, but also as previously produced goods, that ensure the development of economic activities. This vision allows him to give a detailed description of the real economy of Romania, its problems and their possible solutions. The dense analysis manages to capture many of the structural weaknesses of the economy. The thin capitalization of public and private firms, Romanian or foreign, the low complexity of production, and modest value added, make exports dominated by intermediate goods, leading to low competitiveness. This leads to the assessment that the current state of the Romanian economy is specific to low- to middle- income developing countries, rather than developed economies. The impressive amount of data backing the analysis leads to sound conclusions.