중동부유럽

Research and development (R&D) is largely acknowledged as a key factor to promoting economic growth nationally, as well as regionally. The topic of regional development has been receiving special attention in Romania for almost two decades, while regional innovation and competitiveness have only recently begun to attract interest. In this context we aim at exploring the role of R&D, alongside other main production factors, on regional development in Romania. We address this issue in the framework of a panel data model that allows capturing the unobserved regional heterogeneity. The results indicate a significant impact of R&D expenditures on the regional economic growth process in Romania over 1995-2010, thus providing empirical support to large beneficial effects of regional R&D efforts.