INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN ECONOMIC FREEDOM, KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS – COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ROMANIA AND EU AVERAGE

Economic Freedom, Knowledge Economy and Global Competitiveness are three of the many and very different dimensions which characterize the level of a country’s performance. This paper tries to present these three important directions, the specific indicators that measure them – IEF, KEI, GCI – and the relationship between them. Also, it will try to demonstrate that countries with free economy can turn into knowledge and competitive economies. Furthermore, it will make a comparative analysis of Romania with the EU countries’ average in order to identify for Romania which pillar’s scores it has to improve.