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The current situation of the Romanian economy must be understood beginning from the analysis of the main measures of fiscal-budgetary policy applied over the last years by the public authority. In general, the Romanian fiscal policy (before and after accession) was procyclical. However, we continue by presenting some of its characteristics for the past years when we underwent the last ascending phase of the economic cycle. Actually, Romania's GDP exceeded constantly the potential level, and the demand surplus became predominant, generating inflationary pressures. Maintaining the expansionist level of the fiscal policy, in the conditions of a positive deviation of GDP, as of 2017, and opting-out regarding the structural deficit target contributed to affecting the stability of public finances, on short-and medium-term. Romania entered into an extremely difficult economic context, generated by the pandemic, with an extremely narrow fiscal space which limited a lot the possibilities of combating the effects of the pandemic. In this paper we analyzed a period limited to the year 2020, because we consider this time as marking the end of an economic cycle in a period of peace and economic calm, as another is about to begin based on the new realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present context, the consumption and saving patterns are subjected to change both locally and worldwide. The evidence on consumption reveals the importance of data handling and processing using the most relevant tools available. This research paper looks into official statistics data of Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) for milling and baking products and is based on seasonal adjustment. As such, JDemetra+ software is selected as officially recommended by Eurostat for seasonal adjustment. First section presents the official software recommended by Eurostat for seasonal adjustment, while section two discusses the characteristics and functionalities of the software. Furthermore, the following section presents the selected seasonal adjustment technique and describes the usage of monthly data. Section four analysing the results of all the seasonality tests for the selected series is followed next by a brief concluding remarks and observations section. Moreover, in terms of the conducted analysis, the paper examines to test JDemetra+ 3.0.0 pre-release version against JDemetra+ 2.2.4. Evidence favouring JDemetra+ 2.2.4 is obtained, the results showing that some new strategies might be needed in order to obtain better results on seasonal adjustment process using TRAMO-SEATS in JDemetra+ 3.0.0. Seasonal adjustment practitioners in official statistics should be aware and recognize the impact of statistical package selection. In this respect, optimal selection of analysis procedures is needed in the evaluation of a series and thus migrating from JDemetra+ 2.2.4 to JDemetra+ 3.0.0 is problematic without employing resources in developing appropriate strategies for improvement of the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously affected most economic sectors and has already caused severe worldwide social and economic damage. In response, authorities introduced social distancing measures, with an adverse impact on economic activity. If policymakers were aware of the existing vulnerabilities, including those derived from the positioning on the business cycle, resilience could have been increased. The aim of this article is to describe various methods of dating business cycles in several Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Furthermore, a Probit model regarding the probability of a recession is estimated, confirming the adverse effects of the pandemic, in contrast with a brightening outlook given vaccination campaigns and the E.U. recovery package. However, in case of the Romanian economy, an in-sample estimation showed a high probability of negative growth rates even in a pre-pandemic world, due to the high macroeconomic imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is essential that a high level of real convergence is achieved before joining the euro area, as major differences can lead to difficulties in managing the business cycles, in the absence of an independent monetary policy. Therefore, each country should ensure a sufficient level of GDP per capita before the accession. But what can be considered sufficient? Looking back, most euro candidates had a GDP per capita level of 70%-80% of the EU level when adopting the euro currency. Although Romania has made significant progress lately, the following still need to be achieved: labor market reforms, massive infrastructure investments, reducing the regional gaps, increasing innovation investments, and growing budget revenues. The purpose of this paper is to identify the economic and social factors that influence real convergence in Romania, as we believe that working towards increasing real convergence will create the right framework for improving nominal convergence performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with issues related to the increase in the cost of purchasing energy, following the secondary effects related to the liberalization of the markets, which will lead the main clients from the business environment in Romania to conclude that the increase in the cost of energy is a consequence of the decisions established by the main players in the market, those who provide energy and natural gas, decisions aimed at maximizing their profit. In a much more detailed research, a series of remarks can be made, such as that at the basis of the increase in the purchase regarding the fluctuations in the cost of natural gas cost variations of energy and natural gas that consumers have to bear, there are a multitude of aspects imposed by the European Union. and energy, fluctuations that have proven to have created fluctuations in the business environment in our country over time. Following the research carried out, we can conclude that the main causes of the energy and natural gas market that create imbalances in the business environment are: - stock market fluctuations which in the current context have proven to be very dynamic and very unpredictable in extremely sudden changes; - energy import and transformations generated by cross-border flows; - the return to the consumption recorded before the pandemic period; - the reorganization of the geopolitical space based on the decisions imposed by the Russian Federation has a very big impact; - non-exploitation of natural gas stocks from warehouses to the maximum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania's economy is not yet fully and competitively linked to the European and global economy. In the general economic and political history, the political, institutional and economic changes that have occurred since 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe, including Romania, are already recognized. The article deals with the evolutionary situational stages towards the New Economy of Romania. Also, is described the horizon of the post-transformations for reaching the quasi-constant inverted levels between "tangible-intangible" for the transition to a business cycle in the New Knowledge-Based Economy and Risk. It turns out that if the GDP reflects the sum of the market value of all goods and services destined for final consumption, not intermediate ones, produced in all branches of the economy within Romania within one year, then by way of investigative proximity, business and manifestation cycles of these closely followed the evolutionary dimensional trends of similarity and aggregation with GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research introduces a new test for optimum currency area that is based on synchronization of monetary policy recommendations. The main advantage over the more traditional synchronization of business cycles is that it takes into account two known determinants of monetary policy: inflation and the output gap. As an application, the test is applied to the EU economies with a particular focus on the Central and Eastern European Countries. Some of these countries have recently joined the euro area, some are the members of ERM II, and the rest are debating whether to fulfill the convergence criteria of adopting the euro. The main findings are that within the last few years the current non-euro area members (with the exception of Bulgaria and Romania) fit the euro area as well as the core euro area countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]