Journal Archives

From command to market-driven economy: the changing role of manufacturing industries in Romania

Author: Claudia Popescu

Keywords: industrial activities, Romania, spatial inequalities, structural changes
Issue: Volume 15, Issue 2, 2021

After deindustrialisation: Changing urban economy in the Danube valley region

Author: Claudia Popescu

The paper is aiming to discuss the role of deindustrialization in generating socio-economic dislocation at regional level. The change of industry along the way from the centrally-planned to market oriented economy, while redefining the spatial patterns of growth and decline, has combined with emergent forms of social and economic inequality. The specific aims of the paper are twofold. First, having the privilege of a two and a half-decade long perspective, the paper looks back at the period of deindustrialization, pinpointing the successive waves of employment decline in the wider context of the extensive process of economic restructuring. Second, using methods of spatial analysis, the paper examines the new distribution pattern of industrial change in the Danube region, specifying in empirical terms the relation with evolutionary trends and regional specialization. The findings pinpoint at the consequences of the far-reaching deindustrialization process on the regional economic base of the Danube towns.

From Veneto (Italy) to Timişoara (Romania): the birth of an industrial cluster

Author: Claudia Popescu

At international level, industrial clusters have drawn the attention of researchers and policy-makers through their role in revitalizing local economies and generating regional growth. This article analyses the way in which the Italian footwear and textile companies have transferred the concept of Marshallian district from the “Third Italy” to Western Romania. Empirically, the study explains why and how the Italian shoe and textile-makers have relocated their basic production activities to Timişoara. The analysis reveals the development path of the cluster in Timişoara in the context of important barriers to innovation and lack of visibility for local and regional authorities.

Industrial Clusters and Regional Development in Romania

Author: Claudia Popescu

The analysis of industrial clusters became a very actual topic for academic debates and for Governments trying to foster economic growth. In Romania, since the end of the 1990’s until the present day there have been many researches foccusing on the identification of industrial clusters and on the analysis of triggering factors which stood at their origins. All these studies concluded the fact that Romanian clusters appeared „naturally” through industrial attractiveness for direct foreign investments and in the absence of a regional policy to stimulate the formation of competitive productive agglomerations. On the other hand the regional development policy since the end of the 1990’s has led to the development of public clusters. Beginning with 2005, four cluster initiatives were promoted as instruments to grow competitiveness through collective learning.

EDITORS

Prof. dr. Liliana Dumitrache
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography- Human and Economic Geography Department, 1 Nicolae Balcescu Av., 010041, Bucharest, Romania

Dr. Daniela Dumbrăveanu
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography- Human and Economic Geography Department, 1 Nicolae Balcescu Av., 010041, Bucharest, Romania

Dr. Mariana Nae
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography- Human and Economic Geography Department, 1 Nicolae Balcescu Av., 010041, Bucharest, Romania

Dr. Gabriel Simion
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography- Human and Economic Geography Department, 1 Nicolae Balcescu Av., 010041, Bucharest, Romania